1 <Day 17Tuesday, 8th February 2000. 2< PROFESSOR BROWNING, recalled. 3< Cross-Examined by MR IRVING, continued. 4MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I think there is a suggestion that 5we might at some stage amalgamate the documents really 6relating to Professor Browning's evidence which at the 7moment are in two separate places. 8MR IRVING: Miss Rogers has very kindly volunteered to do this 9task and I willingly accept that. 10MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am just mentioning it to you in case you 11had any feelings on the topic, but I think it must be 12sensible. I wonder whether we might not keep the 13pagination? Otherwise the transcript will make very 14little sense. Can I leave that to you? Yes, Mr Irving? 15MR IRVING: May it please the court, I have given your Lordship 16a little bundle of documents, on the basis of which I wish 17to cross-examine the witness this morning. 18MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Let us decide where we are going to put 19those. 20MR IRVING: Whatever occurs under the new regime, I think. 21MR JUSTICE GRAY: Temporarily it had better go into J or L, 22I do not mind which. 23MS ROGERS: L. 24MR IRVING: L. I think the simplest thing to do, Professor 25Browning, is if we just go through this heap in sequence. 26You will agree that the first few documents apparently

. P-2

1come from the Himmler papers, is that correct? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
They come from the administrative and economic main office 3of the SS which is under Himmler. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just pause a moment, Mr Irving, will you? 6Yes, Mr Irving. 7MR IRVING: My Lord, I should explain the purpose of the 8following questions is to go to the quantum, the figures 9really. That is all I am looking at. It is Operation 10Reinhardt. These are documents from a file in Himmler's 11papers called Operation Reinhardt. (To the witness): 12Professor Browning, is it correct that these documents 13appear to come from the Hoover Library in California, if 14you look down the slash on the side? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
And can you recognize the initials of Heinrich Himmler on 17the top copy? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
So, in other words, this document is of high level, shall 20we say? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 22MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where are Himmler's initials? 23MR IRVING: The HH under the word "Hehler" about three inches 24from the top right-hand side of the document. 25MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 26MR IRVING: I am purely interested in the very first line of

. P-3

1the letter under the word "Reichsfuhrer", where it says: 2No. 1. Then, when you translate the next sentence, this 3"Bis 30.4.1943 sind angeliefert"? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
"Up until the 30th April 1943 had been delivered". 5Q.
[Mr Irving]
"Had been delivered the following", right? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
If you look then at the list that follows, it is a number 8of items, a rather sad list, I suppose, a tragic list, of 9wristwatches, is that right, for men and women? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 11Q.
[Mr Irving]
Fountain pens? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
Razor blades and other valuable items, is that right? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
These are all the sort of things that would have been in 15one's toiletries or personal possessions, yes. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. Where had these items come from? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
These were formerly Jewish possessions, but I see nothing 18so far that says which camps they came from. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. Can I draw your attention to the reference line at 20the top of the transcript, the Verwertung, the 21exploitation of -- then comes one of their stock phrases, 22is it not, "Jewish plundering loot", is that correct? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
In fact, I have not seen that first phrase, but the 24"Diebesguts", the stolen goods, yes. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
This is the way that they sought to legitimate what they 26are doing, is that correct?

. P-4

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, their stance was all that Jewish property had been 2stolen by Jews originally, so they were repossessing they 3claimed what was properly German property. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes, a very distorted, perverse, kind of thinking, right? 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
A rationale that appears. 6MR JUSTICE GRAY: How does this help on numbers? 7MR IRVING: It helps on numbers, my Lord, because we have 8numbers of items that had been collected from the victims 9by April 30th 1943. 10MR JUSTICE GRAY: It does not say "from when". 11MR IRVING: I am hoping that the witness will assist us on 12this. 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us ask. 14MR IRVING: Where did these items come from, these valuables? 15Did they come from victims of Operation Reinhardt? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I see nothing in the document that says Operation 17Reinhardt. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
Very well. Can I take you, therefore, to page 4, the 19handwritten number at the bottom? 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
And you will notice in the third line of the letterhead 22the initials "Reinh." in the top left-hand corner? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
"Reinh", yes. 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
Can I take you to page 10, and on the same letter head 25also we have Reinhardt? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Those two documents do have the "Reinh.".

. P-5

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
Thank you. And on the page 12 -- I am sorry, it is the 2same document. So, if these items come from an SS folder 3which is called Operation Reinhardt and these particular 4documents have the initials "Reinh." on them, and they 5appear to be items stolen from the Jews or from victims, 6Jewish victims in fact, depending on the subject line, on 7the face of it, this is a list provided to Himmler of 8items that have been stolen from the Jews up to April 30th 91943. Is that a reasonable interpretation? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
In terms of the inventory in the first document where we 11do not have the reference to Reinhardt, it is at least 12conceivable this was property taken from German Jews about 13to be deported, and could easily have been stuck in the 14same folder. I do not see anything there that would 15necessarily lead us to conclude that the first inventory 16came from camps in Poland. It could well be that this was 17possessed Jewish property taken while Jews were being in 18the process of being deported from Germany, but stuck in 19the same folder because it always was relating to Jewish 20property. 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
Do you know what happened to these valuables that were 22collected in Operation Reinhardt? Where did they go 23initially? 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have seen documents that show a wide variety of 25distribution. 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
Where they overhauled, were they recycled in some way

. P-6

1before they were parcelled out? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Once collected at the three camps in Poland they are taken 3to Lublin where you have several camps, the old airport 4camp, for instance, where some sorting and reconditioning 5was done. Some of the properties were distributed there 6to ethnic Germans and any German unit that needs something 7can come and ask to be given something. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
Can I take you to document 10? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
Does this say that they have a number of, 20,000, pocket 11watches and various other valuables at present at 12Oranienburg, and does the next paragraph say that the 13watches and fountain pens have been overhauled and are 14ready to be dispatched? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The topic of the document is watch distribution to members 16of the SS. 17Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
And then below they give you the different kinds. Would 19you allow me a moment to read the document? 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
Would you read the paragraph beginning with the word 21"Insgesamt"? 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. At the moment in Office D there are for repair 23100,000 hand wristwatches, 39,000 pocket watches, 7,500 24alarm clocks, 37,000 pens and so forth. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
There is no indication of any other stocks of valuables of 26this nature being processed by this central processing and

. P-7

1overhauling department? 2MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do we have all the files, all the documents 3in the files? I take the point you are making. 4MR IRVING: This was all the documents in this file. I picked 5them in California about five or six weeks ago. 6MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is the file complete? Is it intact? 7MR IRVING: I have no way of knowing, of course, my Lord. 8MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is the problem. I see what are you 9getting at. Professor Browning, can you help on that? Is 10this likely to be a complete record? We have only looked 11at three documents. 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Since so much was destroyed I think we presume a lot of 13them are not complete records. I have seen fragmentary 14records from the archive in Lublin where less valuable 15materials is distributed there. I think very valuable 16things like watches and whatever do have to be sent in 17but, if somebody wants furniture or wants clothing, they 18can requisition that in Lublin from these camps and they 19are never sent back to Berlin. Small volume high value 20items would be sent back. It would be something that 21would be worth shipping back, such as these particular 22items. 23MR IRVING: Do you agree that this document on page 10, which 24is dated November 29th 1944, and has the heading or 25subheading Operation Reinhardt in its address list, says 26that altogether at present there are at Amtsgruppe D at

. P-8

1present being repaired 100,000 wristwatches, presumably a 2rounded off number and various other valuables? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
That gives an order of magnitude. It does not indicate 5there are any other treasure troves of such valuables 6anywhere else in the SS system, does it? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It says these are the ones that are available for 8distribution. We have no idea if there are lots of other 9kinds of valuables that have been sent elsewhere, but at 10least that much has been taken out for purposes of 11distribution to the SS. 12Q.
[Mr Irving]
Can I take you back to page 1 again, which is about 18 13month earlier, is it not, 13th May 1943? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
That says that by April 30th 1943 we have received, 16effectively there have been delivered to us, 94,000 men's 17watches? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is it likely that these were taken from the victims in the 20camps? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Again, it may well be that these were taken in Germany. 22It could be possible they were taken from the camp. In 23both, at least in the second case, I would presume that 24there was a selection of the best ones that they were 25sending back for repair for the Waffen SS. Cheaper goods 26in general would not have been worth doing that.

. P-9

1MR JUSTICE GRAY: Does page 10, Professor, relate entirely to 2Oranienburg? 3MR IRVING: Oranienburg, my Lord, was the headquarters was it 4not? Witness, was not Pohl actually based at Oranienburg, 5the head of this particular section? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The part of the administrative and economic main office 7that dealt with concentration camps is in Oranienburg, so 8Ampt D, which is here, is stationed in Oranienburg, or at 9least part of it. It says by the Office D in Oranienburg 10so we know at least they have one office there. 11Q.
[Mr Irving]
All the wealthy Holocaust victims, either at the time they 12were dispatched from their places of residence or upon 13their arrival in the camps, were systematically robbed of 14their valuables by Operation Reinhardt, or as part of 15Operation Reinhardt? Is that correct? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Operation Reinhardt, in a sense, is the last stage of a 17long process of dispossession because the Jews in Germany 18were disposed of much of their property for that. When 19they were put on the trains the last things like rings and 20valuables and jewellery are taken. These are the small 21personal possessions they would still have been allowed. 22Again in Poland Jews are dispossessed of their property 23and moved into ghettoes and, when they are taken to the 24camps, the last remaining possessions are taken by 25Operation Reinhardt. Operation Reinhardt, in a sense, is 26the last cleaning up of whatever property had not been

. P-10

1taken already. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
Not many more questions on this matter, Professor. Would 3you be able to make any kind of global estimates on these 4kind of data and say, well, therefore, the number of 5victims was not less than a certain figure and it was 6probably not more than a certain figure, on the basis that 7of course not everybody had valuable wristwatches or 8valuable fountain pens, but on the other hand not many 9people wear two wristwatches, shall we say, so it was 10probably not less than 100,000 people? Can you say that? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I would say that this would help us with a minimum figure 12but it would be nowhere close to a maximum figure because 13they are presumably skimming the cream and taking the very 14best things. Most Jews would have traded their 15wristwatches for food and whatever else long before this 16if they were in desperate straits, which they were. So it 17does not give us anything approaching a maximum figure. 18MR RAMPTON: Can I intervene to say that I just have done some 19arithmetic? It is not obviously an exhaustive figure for 20whatever reason, but the total under A on this page is 21200,000 items. 22MR JUSTICE GRAY: Which page are you? 23MR RAMPTON: Page 10, my Lord, at A. Many of these items may 24of course come from the same person, one does not know. 25MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is what I was wondering. You can have a 26fountain pen and a watch.

. P-11

1MR RAMPTON: Of course you can. 2MR JUSTICE GRAY: What was the number? 3MR RAMPTON: 200,000 precisely. 4MR IRVING: Exactly, but it is giving orders of magnitude, in 5my opinion, my Lord. We are really clutching at straws 6and trying to arrive at figures. Is it not right, 7Professor, that our statistical database for arriving at 8any kind of conclusions for the numbers of people who have 9been killed in the Holocaust by whatever means, we are 10really floundering around in the dark, are we not? Is 11that correct? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. I would not express it that way. I would say we have 13a very accurate list of the deportation trains from 14Germany. In many cases we have the entire roster name by 15name and we are not floundering. We can tell you, as we 16have seen in the intercepts, 974 on one train. 17Q.
[Mr Irving]
But I interrupt you there and you say in many cases, but, 18of course, had we got a complete list of all the ---- 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Can I finish my answer. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
--- trains, then ---- 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
May I finish my answer? 22MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let him finish. You have been very good, 23Mr Irving, but let him finish this answer. 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
In terms again of France, the Netherlands, the countries 25from which there were deportations from Western Europe, we 26can do a very close approximation by trains, the number of

. P-12

1people per train. 2 In the area of Poland, there were at least 3statistics in terms of ghetto populations and these 4ghettos were liquidated completely, so we can come to a 5fairly good rough figure of Polish Jews. We also have a 6fairly reliable prewar census and postwar calculations so 7that one can do a subtraction. So, in terms of Holocaust 8victims from Poland westward, we are not floundering. We 9are coming fairly close approximation. 10 Where historians differ and where you get this 11figure of between 5 and 6 is because we do not have those 12figures for the Soviet Union. 13MR IRVING: Can I halt you at this point ---- 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
There is where we are -- that the numbers vary greatly. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
But can I halt you at that point and say the fact that a 16train load of Jews sets out from Amsterdam or from France 17does not, of course, necessarily mean that they end up 18being gassed or killed in some other way, does it? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
If they are sent to camps like Treblinka or Sobibor or 20Chelmno or Belzec, yes, they are virtually all 21exterminated. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
On the basis of eyewitness evidence? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
On the basis of, yes, what I have presented here. We know 24that ---- 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
Which we are coming to later on? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, and they do not come back.

. P-13

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
They disappear. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
Well, the Nazis did not want them to come back, but would 4you accept that large numbers were also the subject of, 5shall we say, population movements, particularly in the 61939/1940 period. You talked about the Jews in Poland? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, this is a move from one area of German control to 8another. So Jews that are moved from the Warthegau into 9the General Government are then included in the ghetto 10population statistics of the various towns in the General 11Government and those ghettos are then liquidated and they 12count as part of the disappearance ---- 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
When you mean "the ghetto is liquidated", you mean the 14ghetto is just wound up? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The ghetto is empty. People are put on trains. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
Emptied, but the word "liquidated" is rather suggestive 17that something else is happening? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, that was the German term. "Ghetto liquidierung" is 19their word, and that these liquidation, ghetto 20liquidations, also we know the mode in which they were 21carried out with extraordinary brutality and ---- 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes, but come back to Poland for a minute. You talk about 23the fact that we had the prewar population census and the 24postwar census. We are having a major problem with Poland 25because the whole of Poland was shifted westwards as a 26result of the agreements, so what do you mean by Poland?

. P-14

1This is the first problem. Is that not right? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, you are talking about territory, but the Polish 3population in terms of number of Jews left at the end 4really is not changed or altered by a shifting of borders 5because there were no Jews in either the German or the 6Polish territory. 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
They also have a problem caused by the fact that the 8Soviet Union arbitrarily declared that everybody who was 9in the Soviet occupied part of certain parts of Poland 10became Soviet citizens. After they had entered, 11I believe, on September 19th or September 17th 1939, did 12they not arbitrarily declare after that that large number, 13the citizens who had previously been Polish were now 14Soviet citizens? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, but those areas ten fall back under the Germans and 16they are part of the statistics -- I mean, the prewar 17census we have is pre1939. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you saying that the Jews who were in the Soviet part 19of occupied Poland in 1939 stayed there until the Germans 20invaded two years later? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think most did. Some did manage to get -- those that 22were saved, for the most part, were the ones that Stalin 23sent on to Siberia. 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is it right the figure of those who left and were sent on 25to Siberia was of the order of 300,000? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The total number of Polish Jews in Siberia I do not think

. P-15

1is even close to that. We know that the estimated number 2of Jews that fled or were deported from the German zone to 3the Soviet zone in 1939/1940 was in the magnitude of 200 4to 300,000. How many for 1941 are, in a sense, caught in 5the German advance which in these areas, of course, is the 6very first territories they overcome, that you do not have 7any indication that very large numbers escaped at all. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
But there is an area of uncertainty, is there not? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The point at which the German documents start saying "The 10Jewish populations have managed to flee" is when you get 11much deeper into the Soviet Union where it took longer for 12the Russian armies to get to and there was more warning. 13The German documents indicate only then are they beginning 14to find that the Jews had managed to flee before they 15arrived. 16 So, while there is certainly a degree of 17uncertainty, to suggest that significant vast numbers of 18Jews escaped from these very border territories the very 19first days occupied by the German Army, I do not think is 20-- it is not one that I can accept. 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
But is not the evidence, in fact, that the Soviet Union 22had evacuated large parts of their forward territories in 23preparation for their attack on Germany, and that when the 24Germans advanced into these areas in Operation Barbarossa 25in June 1941 they found the population relatively thin 26because of these evacuations?

. P-16

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, I do not think so. 2MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can we ---- 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
There were deportations of what they -- there were 4deportations of what they considered political enemies. 5MR IRVING: So, in other words, I am not right in suggesting 6there is any area of uncertainty about the figures, in 7your view? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. What I said is the area of greatest uncertainty is 9the areas of the Soviet Union and that from that boundary 10westward we come to a fairly close proximation. After 11that it varies, estimates vary greatly. 12MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I just interrupt because I want to go 13back to Operation Reinhardt which is where we started and 14we have rather sort of spread out from there. Can you -- 15Mr Irving, you are probably going to ask this at some 16stage anyway -- put an estimate on the number of people 17you would say were killed by gassing at the smaller death 18camps like Treblinka, Sobibor and Chelmno? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The numbers that the German courts came to in their 20investigations in which they emphasised that they were 21using the minimum estimate so that this would not be a 22controversy between the defence and the prosecution, in 23the first Treblinka trial, I believe it was 700 or 24750,000. By the second Treblinka trial, they had upped 25that figure to 9 or 950,000. Belzec is estimated at about 26550,000. Sobibor, I believe they estimated 200,000, and

. P-17

1Chelmno, as a minimum, I think they said 150,000, but they 2thought it was more likely in the 250,000 area. 3MR IRVING: When were these estimates made? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
These were in the various judgments of the 1960s in German 5courts. 6Q.
[Mr Irving]
1960s and 1970s or 1960s? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
These particular trials, I believe, all -- and I think the 8last one was in 1968/69, so I think all of those concluded 9before 1970. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
You say these figures were reached at by agreement between 11the parties? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
These were the figures that were put into the judgment and 13what the prosecution said -- I mean, let me see if I 14can phrase this right, I want to be very careful on this 15-- that this was the figure that in a sense was in the 16realm where they had sufficient documentation that it was 17not contested. Then you have the estimate, possible 18additional that they did not want to put into the judgment 19or the indictment because they did not want that to be an 20obscuring issue or become a detracting issue, "Well, we 21did not kill 250,000, we killed only 200,000". 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
I was going to ask, to put it in common language, was it 23any skin off anybody's nose if people added 100,000 more 24or less? I mean, was anybody going to get a shorter 25sentence because the numbers were lower or a longer 26sentence because the numbers were higher? What I am

. P-18

1getting at is were the figures properly tested in court? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The figures were reached in general by historical expert 3witnesses that submitted these to the court and they were 4open to cross-examination by the Defence. 5Q.
[Mr Irving]
And these witnesses were German or? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The most, the most active witness was Wolfgang Schafler 7who was a German historian. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
A German historian? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is that the very reputable German historian too. 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
A very reputable German historian, who, in fact, looked 12at ---- 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, if you challenge these figures, 14I think now is the time to do so. I do not know whether 15you do or you do not. 16MR IRVING: My Lord, I am not in a position to challenge them 17on a numerical basis, but I do wish to plant or implant 18doubts in your Lordship's mind as to the rigour with which 19the figures have been arrived at, shall I put it like 20that? All I have to establish, if I have understood it 21correctly, in your Lordship's mind is the position that 22I am entitled, as a writer myself, not to be called a 23Holocaust denier because I question figures. I can put it 24as simply as that. Your Lordship has a different take on 25that, I ought to be told it now perhaps in order that I 26can ----

. P-19

1MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sure about "ought", but I understand the 2way you use this evidence. 3MR IRVING: I mean, this is not a court of law, criminal law, 4where they are trying somebody for murder. We are just 5trying to establish a matter of Holocaust denial really 6which is a different standard of proof, I think. 7MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Would it be helpful if I said a little bit about how 9Schafler arrived at his figures? 10MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think it might be in the sense that 11Mr Irving is really saying, "Well, I question the figures" 12and I think he must by implication be saying, "and I have 13good grounds for questioning the figures". So I think if 14you wanted to add something about the way in which the 15figures were arrived at, I think that would be helpful. 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, the figures for each of the camps he did by trying to 17trace the ghetto liquidations at the different periods 18into which camps they were sent. So we have a very 19accurate reduction of the Lodz population, which trains 20went to Chelmno, when, and we can come very accurately to 21the number of people deported from Lodz to Chelmno, then 22one is on a little bit less secure grounds for the various 23other surrounding towns where we do not have a day by day 24deduction or a train by train calculation, but we do have 25statistics of what the populations were there before the 26whole operation began.

. P-20

1 So with some rough estimate of how many would 2have been selected for labour, he came to a figure for 3Lodz as a minimum figure and then a more probable but not 4putting forward as necessarily a somewhat higher figure. 5He did the same calculations for the other camps. 6 We know how many Dutch transports went to 7Sobibor. We know which regions were cleared that were 8directed to Sobibor. We had the figures of the Jewish 9populations in those ghettos before the liquidation and 10the number of workers that were shifted to some of the 11work camps, and it was on the calculation, on that basis 12that he arrived at his figures. 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is very helpful. 14MR IRVING: Yes. 15MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do ask anything you want, Mr Irving. 16MR IRVING: I think this is probably an appropriate point to 17ask the witness about the atmosphere in Germany for 18historians. Is it possible for an historian in Germany 19now, whether reputable or disreputable historian, to 20advance opposing hypotheses in any degree of safety? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Oh, absolutely. For instance, in this court earlier I saw 22in the transcript you said that no one could refer to the 23Himmler guidelines without risking that -- the intercept 24of the Himmler guidelines, and, of course, Christian 25Jerloch has published that in Germany, and has suffered 26absolutely no repercussions and there is no question that

. P-21

1he would, that there is a very vigorous discussion among 2German historians on the Holocaust. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
But would I be right in saying this discussion is skewed 4or distorted by the fact that anybody who goes to the 5other end of the spectrum, shall we say, and starts 6saying, "I think the figures are much lower because, for 7example, it was not a systematic liquidation" or anything 8like that, anybody who accidentally says one of the taboo 9phrases in Germany is going to end up in trouble, in 10prison, and that this must certainly cast apprehensions in 11the mind of somebody about which side of the debate he 12takes? 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think that is nonsense. For instance, Hans Monson 14shares your view that Hitler did not give an order. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
Would you tell the court who Hans Monson is? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Hans Monson is a very notable historian at the University 17of Bochum, now retired boss tonne. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
He is not a Holocaust denier, is he? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
You asked me with taboos and one of the things that has 20generally been seen that you have been identified with is 21the argument that Hitler did not make the decision. Hans 22Monson and Martin Broszat have accepted or have argued 23that Hitler did not give an order or a decision---- 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
Can I just halt you there? It would be useful if you 25would---- 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I am still talking.

. P-22

1MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are interrupting a little bit, 2Mr Irving. Try and restrain yourself until the end of the 3answer. 4MR IRVING: Your Lordship will know why I want to interrupt 5there. 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Far from being thrown in jail or fearing, Hans Monson 7currently is the Shapiro Visiting Scholar at the United 8States Holocaust Museum. There is a wide of range of 9debate covering a wide spectrum of opinion. There is in 10Germany a law that outlaws Holocaust denial, but I know of 11no German historian that I have come across that has lost 12a night's sleep worrying that this prevents him from 13arguing from documents and from carrying out a full 14academic discussion. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
Have you heard of Dr Reinhard Seitelmann? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have heard of Dr Reinhard Seitelmann. I know him. 17Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you familiar with the course of his career after he 18made certain statements? Was he originally a historian at 19the free university in Berlin? 20MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I think this is a digression 21really. 22MR IRVING: Very well. Would you explain to the court then who 23Professor Martin Broszat was? Was he an eminent German 24historian? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. He was the head of the Institute for Contemporary 26History in Munich.

. P-23

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
His opinion on my hypothesis that Hitler did not issue an 2order or that there is no Hitler order, are you familiar 3with that? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He takes your view that Hitler did not know of this, or 5that it was kept secret from him, or he would not have 6authorized it. That it was done by others behind his back 7he does not accept. He does not think that Hitler gave an 8order for or made a decision for the Final Solution, but 9that rather he ---- 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
It just happened? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He encouraged it, he instigated it in the sense that he 12made known his feelings and that others clamoured, or 13strove to gain Brownie points to get credit by realising 14the programme that Hitler hinted that he wanted to see 15done. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you familiar with the word Verliegenheitslosung, a way 17out of an awkward solution, a way out of an awkward 18problem? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He used the phrase that it was a way out of a Sackgasse, 20out of a dead end. 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
He picked up this word from the introduction to my book 22and said this was probably correct. Are you familiar with 23that? 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not know if he picked that expression up from your 25book, but he did. In so far as the issue of the Hitler 26order, Monson and Broszat have argued for a long time, as

. P-24

1you have, they do not think that Hitler gave an explicit 2or formal order. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
It would be a grave injustice to call either of those two 4professors Holocaust deniers, would it not? 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. The argument over whether Hitler gave an order or not 6is not commonly part of the issue of Holocaust denial. 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
Thank you very much for saying that. Hans Monson, would 8you identify him? Is he a Professor at the Royal 9university in Bochum? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, he was. He is retired. 11Q.
[Mr Irving]
A very eminent historian, is that correct? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
Very well. I hope your Lordship pardons me for having 14made that little excursion? 15MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. You picked up the answer that Professor 16Browning gave about whether denying Hitler's having given 17an order was an aspect of Holocaust denial, but I do not 18think the Defendants really say that it is. 19MR RAMPTON: We do not. 20MR JUSTICE GRAY: I was checking your summary of case. 21MR RAMPTON: The Hitler exculpation, exoneration, apology part 22of the case has nothing to do with Holocaust denial at 23all. They may have a similar motive at the end of the day 24but that is completely different. We have focused on 25Hitler's exoneration to prove what we call distorted 26history.

. P-25

1MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I think what you do say is that it is 2part of Holocaust denial to deny that there was a 3systematic programme. 4MR RAMPTON: Yes. 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is not the same as denying that it was 6Hitler who instigated that programme. 7MR RAMPTON: That is right. It is number 3, no systematic 8programme of exterminating Europe's Jews, whether on the 9part of Hitler or the Nazi leadership. 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think that Professors Monson and Broszat would say that 11Hitler instigated it in various ways. They would simply 12say there was no formal order or decision in the sense 13that we understand that is the way ---- 14MR JUSTICE GRAY: You say that yourself. 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 16MR IRVING: Is this the debate between the intentionalists and 17the functionalists? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It is one aspect of that debate. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
By instigating it, would you say that Hitler instigated it 20by raising the climate of anti-semitism in Germany, or was 21it more specific than that? 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think that was the beginning of it, but it gets also 23more specific than that when one continually indicates 24that you want this whole problem to disappear, that you 25want a settlement to this. You prophesy a disappearance 26of the Jews, which is in a sense to set the climate in

. P-26

1which people are to come forward to you with proposals 2which you then can approve or not. We know the pattern 3that Himmler comes to Hitler in mid September with the 4proposals for the ethnic cleansing of western Poland. 5Q.
[Mr Irving]
September 1939? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He comes to Hitler. They bring the Madagascar plan to 7Hitler. They bring proposals about marking and 8deportation to Hitler. In terms of concrete proposals 9Hitler is not the micromanager, but the proposals are a 10response to the signals that he gives of what he wants and 11wants done, and this is what I would say we would call 12instigation. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
You refer to his prophesy, that was the speech of January 1430th 1939? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That is one example. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
That was January 30th 1939. Did the killings start 17immediately? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. That is a prophesy that could be realised in a number 19of ways. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
Nothing really happened for about three years, did it? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. I would not interpret that as understood yet as total 22destruction. But when this does not work and there still 23needs to be -- that is, expulsion, ethnic cleansing, does 24not work, the reservation plans prove to be impractical, 25then the demand that something be done is still there, and 26then one brings more extreme points.

. P-27

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
How realistic was the Madagascar plan to which you just 2referred? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Do I think they took it seriously? Yes, I do think they 4took it seriously. It is fantastic but of course 5Auschwitz is fantastic, too. 6Q.
[Mr Irving]
In what way is Madagascar a fantastic plan? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Fantastic in the sense that one is bizarre, the notion 8that you could take 4 million Jews and put them on ships 9and send them to Madagascar, and that anything other than 10the vast bulk of them would die under the conditions of 11being dumped into the jungle of Madagascar. Even that a 12plan that clearly in its implications involved vast 13decimation, they still talked in these words of 14resettlement. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is this not exactly what happened with the state of 16Israel? Millions of these people were taken and dumped in 17Israel, so to speak, although they did it voluntarily? It 18was an uprooting and a geographical resettlement. 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The number of people coming into Israel of course came in 20gradually and there was a structure and an organization to 21arrange for and assist their reception. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
Have you seen in the German files references to the 23planning for the Madagascar settlement? In other words, 24the necessary retraining, the agricultural specialists and 25everything being set up by the Foreign Ministry and by the 26German Navy, the Naval staff?

. P-28

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. I did not see some setting up retraining. I saw them 2planning to take all the property and who would be in 3charge of gathering the Jews, and that it would be an SS 4state at the other end, but I certainly did not see, as 5part of the files on Madagascar, retraining. There was 6some toleration of Zionist groups in Germany setting up 7agricultural camps in the prewar period when they were 8trying to encourage the emigration of Jews, be it to 9Palestine or anywhere else. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
Adolf Hitler repeatedly referred to the Madagascar 11solution, did he not, from 1938 in the Goebbels diaries 12right through until July 24th 1942 in the table talk? 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The Madagascar plan is a concrete plan, in which people 14are actually working on it. It is the period of June to 15September 1940, but there are references to Madagascar 16earlier and later. It is an idea that had floated in a 17number of anti-semitic pamphlets and the Jewish expert of 18the German Foreign Office in fact, who sort of arrived at 19this on his own, claimed that he got the idea from reading 20one of these pamphlets, so it was an idea in the air. 21This was one of the sort of anti-semitic fantasies that 22this problem would disappear if all of these Jews could be 23sent to the most distant island they could conceive of. 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
Out of mind, out of sight. Would you agree that it was 25Hitler's pipe dream? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I would not call it pipe dream, because I think, if

. P-29

1England had surrendered, they would have tried to do it. 2They would have tried to implement it just as they tried 3to implement the Lublin reservation plan and just as they 4tried and succeeded in implementing the death camp plans. 5Q.
[Mr Irving]
Have you seen indications in the negotiations with France 6over the peace settlement with France, the armistice 7negotiations, that there was an attempt by the Germans to 8secure permission for the Madagascar plan because 9Madagascar was a French territory? 10MR JUSTICE GRAY: I thought it was British. 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, French. 12MR IRVING: Madagascar was French but it became British after 13May 26th 1942, my Lord, or thereabouts, when we did the 14usual thing. 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
They sent people to the French colonial ministry to get 16information on Madagascar. They certainly did not need 17French permission, and I am not sure how much this was a 18topic in armistice negotiations that were going on after 19the armistice, I do not know how much that was a topic 20between them. 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
You think it was a totally impracticable proposition, the 22idea of sending 6 million Jews, or whatever it was, to an 23island the size of Madagascar? 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think they would have attempted it, and I think the 25results would have been disastrous. 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
Why would they have been disastrous?

. P-30

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Because I think a large percentage of the people sent 2there would have perished. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
I think that the Jews are a very sturdy people. They have 4shown that by their forthrightness in Palestine, have they 5not? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think the conditions under which they arrived there, an 7island which the documents said clearly was to be an SS 8state, would not have been anything remotely similar to 9the conditions of an attempted and organized reception of 10refugees in Palestine after 1945. 11Q.
[Mr Irving]
The population of Madagascar at that time was about 1 12million? 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I could not say. 14Q.
[Mr Irving]
The population of Madagascar now is over 13 million? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I could not say. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
So it could have housed that number of people quite 17easily? It is a country the size of Germany, is that 18correct? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It would depend on the circumstances and indeed bringing 20Jews in, and all of their property taken, and under SS 21custody, I do not think one could say that they would have 22been housed easily. I think it would have been lethal. 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
If Hitler's intention was to exterminate all the Jews 24systematically, then why would he have had a pipe dream of 25sending the Jews to a country like Madagascar where they 26would have survived?

. P-31

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This is where we get to the interpretational issues of the 2intentionalist and functionalist. I do not believe at 3that point that he intended to destroy the Jews 4systematically. He wanted a problem to disappear. 5Q.
[Mr Irving]
When did the intention then develop? This is important 6I think. 7MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Let us get on to that. 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
As I say in my report, my feeling is that there were two 9separate phases of decision making. Both of them stretch 10out over a period of time. 11MR IRVING: With particular reference to Hitler, please? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It is an incremental decision making process. We have in 13the Spring of 1941, in preparation for Barbarossa, a 14number of his statements about what kind of war this is 15going to be, a war of destruction, a killing of what he 16calls Judao- Bolshevik intelligentsia and this kind of 17thing. This results in proposals coming to him, one of 18which is the creation of the Einsatzgruppen in its 19arrangement with the army or logistical support, the 20Commissar order, and that in the opening weeks of the war 21this led to the selective killing of adult male Jews in 22the regions that the Einsatzgruppen enter. 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
Can I halt you there for a moment and say, when he talks 24about the Judao-Bolshevik enemy, which half of that 25adjective weighs strongest in his mind, the Bolshevik or 26Judao?

. P-32

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think for him it is a package deal, but in terms of what 2is wrong with Bolshevism is that it is the latest 3manifestation of the Jewish threat, so the Jewish issue is 4the prime one and the Bolshevik is the current 5manifestation of this Jewish threat as he understands it, 6because he has seen previous manifestations are the French 7revolution and the liberals. Christianity is the first 8Jewish threat. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
There have been more recent manifestations, have there 10not, for example in the Spanish Civil War? 11MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, this is getting a bit discursive. 12Can we just pin it down a little bit? 13MR IRVING: I am trying to pin it down. 14MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor Browning, I know we are 15interrupting an answer and I want you to resume it, but 16can we just anchor it to particular dates? The date that 17is in my mind, and I would be interested to see the 18document if possible, is the 25th May, and I think it was 191940 rather than 41. 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The May 25th document is the Himmler guidelines for the 21treatment of the peoples of Eastern Europe, in which he 22wants to reauthorize the ethnic cleansing from the western 23territories, which Frank and Goring had managed to whittle 24down. 25MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that not, in a sense, the start of it all? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, that is still in the ethnic cleansing phase. That is

. P-33

1the document in which Himmler is still referring to a 2total extermination as unGerman and impossible. 3MR IRVING: I was going point that out, yes. 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It is the following year, 1941 in the spring, when Hitler 5begins to talk about this war of destruction in the East, 6the destruction of the Judao-Bolshevik intelligentsia, 7that leads to the selective killing of adult male Jews in 8the opening five or six weeks of Barbarossa. 9MR IRVING: Can I halt you there and say which documents? Are 10you referring to the Kommissar order then? 11MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can we look at some of these documents? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We are referring to a collection of documents, the 13agreement between the military and the Einsatzgruppen in 14which the Einsatzgruppen will get its instructions from 15the SS but its logistic support from the military. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is it not possible to argue that these are purely military 17measures at this time? 18MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can we look at the document? I really do 19want to look at this document, the Kommissar order. 20MR RAMPTON: Your Lordship will excuse me for interrupting. 21You will find three relevant documents cited, or rather 22utterances by Hitler in a military or a semi-military 23context on pages 55 and 56 of Dr Longerich's first 24report. They are all three of them in March 1941 before 25Barbarossa starts. Perhaps Professor Browning might be 26given that, so that he can see it.

. P-34

1MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think it is quite important because, if 2this is too broad brush, it is perhaps not as helpful as 3it could be. 4MR IRVING: I agree, my Lord, because I shall want to draw 5attention to the military nature of these orders. 6MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do so please, but let us do it by reference 7to the documents. 8MR IRVING: They are criminal, there is no question, and they 9are Draconian, but they are military. 10MR JUSTICE GRAY: I understand that. So 55 and 56 of the first 11part of Longerich, Mr Rampton? 12MR RAMPTON: Yes, my Lord. 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you. 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. I think, if we look at the very first one, in fact 15he makes clear that his campaign has both a military and 16an ideological side. As he says, the coming campaign is 17more than just a struggle of arms. It will also lead to a 18confrontation of two world views. Then he goes on, it is 19does not suffice to defeat the enemy army, Jewish and 20Bolshevik intelligentsia must be eliminated. So this 21campaign from the very beginning is to be conceived as 22more than a conventional war between armies. It has a 23strong ideological element and that ideological element 24relates to race, and particularly to Jews, and that tenor 25I think is very strong in his spring of 1941 26declarations. As I say, when we then look at what was the

. P-35

1result of that, if one looks at the Einsatzgruppen 2reports, the overwhelming bulk of the victims who were 3shot in the first five or six weeks are ---- 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
Described as Jews? 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
--- as male Jews. They kept some communist 6functionaries. They regret, in a sense, most of the 7communist functionaries seem to have disappeared, the Jews 8have not, and that these then are the main target group. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
If this document refers to the Judao-Bolshevik 10intelligentsia, this does not explain why large numbers of 11thousands of ordinary Jews are being taken off trains or 12taken out of the towns and taken out of the country side 13and machine gunned into pits They are not the 14intelligentsia in any way. This document covers the 15intelligentsia. 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No one is saying that this is a hands on micromanaged 17order. This is a speech by Hitler in which he is 18declaring a set of expectations, and then there are 19various preparations made and proposals brought forward 20that, in a sense, cast his vision of a war of destruction 21into concrete terms. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
If I could rephrase that document, if this was going the 23other way and the Russians were saying, we are going to 24invade Washington and we are going to destroy the 25capitalist intelligentsia, and subsequently very large 26atrocities took place and millions of ordinary Americans

. P-36

1being machine gunned into pits, you would not link those 2two facts, would you? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think one could, in the sense that one would say ---- 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
Just Americans with bank accounts or otherwise fitted? 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, one, it sets a mood in which destruction of civilian 6populations, killing will not be limited to armed 7soldiers. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
Would I be right in suggesting that this order 9effectively created a killing field, and that anybody else 10who fitted the title of Jew who came within that killing 11field was therefore at risk, put it that way? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This certainly creates an atmosphere in which clearly 13there will be lots of killing and it will not be 14restricted to military combat, that there will be killing 15of those that are seen to be an ideological and racial 16enemy, as well as military. I think, when we look at, in 17a sense, the kinds of proposals that are brought forward, 18very revealing are not only the Kommissar order and the 19agreement between the military and the Einsatzgruppen, but 20the economic plans that come forward, such as the May 2nd 21meeting of the State secretaries, in which they say, for 22Germany to be blockade proof, we must take lots of 23material out of the Soviet Union, and we must be very 24clear that, when we do this, umpteen million Russians are 25going to starve to death. So we have an atmosphere of a 26war of destruction in which civilian life is going to be

. P-37

1totally cheap. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
He does not say, as a result of our taking economic goods 3out of the country, millions of people, preferably Jews, 4are going to die. That is just any Russians? 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This is that lots of Russians will die, lots of civilians 6will die. Then, of course, if we cast that, as an 7historian, to put it into the wider context, you would not 8disagree with that, I think. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The wider context basically is where people have been 11shot, Jews have been shot in larger percentages than 12others, where people have starved, the Jews have starved 13first. So, if you have a programme of shooting and 14starving, one can begin with the fact that there is going 15to be a large loss of Jewish life, that this would be 16clear to anyone in the context of Nazi Germany in the 17spring of 41. That is not yet. That is not yet an 18explicit order for the killing of Soviet Jewry. It is a 19creation of, we might say, a hunting licence. No one will 20get into trouble killing Jews. One will get credits 21rather than anything against them. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
I agree entirely, but the focus is at this stage on this 23document strictly, shall we say, the upper 10,000? It is 24the Judao-Bolshevik intelligentsia and their hierarchy, 25all the way down to the Kommissars, is that right? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The focus is selective killing and indiscriminate

. P-38

1starvation. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
The emphasis is on this as a measure of war? This is the 3kind of war we are going to be fighting? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. The emphasis is on measure of a war that is 5understood to be both military and ideological and racial. 6Q.
[Mr Irving]
A war to the death, yes. 7MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor Browning, where do you get 8indiscriminate starving from? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That is a document I believe is not one that I cited. It 10is a protocol of a meeting of the State secretaries on May 112nd 1941. It is a Nuremberg document, in which the 12protocol is that we all agree that, when we take out of 13the Soviet Union what is necessary to make Germany 14blockade proof, we must be perfectly clear that this will 15mean the mass starvation of umpteen million Russians. So 16it is a document that speaks to what was clear to 17everybody involved in the planning process, that this war 18of destruction was going to mean a vast loss of life. 19Given what had happened in Poland, I would argue, everyone 20understood that, in a vast loss of life, Jewish life was 21even cheaper than other life. That is what I would call 22the beginning of this first phase of the decision making 23process. It sets up a genocidal atmosphere, it does not 24yet set up a systematic plan for total liquidation. 25MR IRVING: Can I leap forward ---- 26MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I am going to highlight that.

. P-39

1I am also going to suggest -- the questions have been fast 2and furious this morning. That is not a criticism. 3I suspect you would quite welcome a break and I am sure 4the transcriber would. It has been actually quite 5intensive this morning. 6MR IRVING: Can I have one short question? On that point we 7shall round it off and let us say that this kind genocidal 8order, is it not almost identical to the Morgantower 9decision of September 1944, where the Americans said, let 10us do this to the Germans, we do not care how many starve? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I would have to look at that document before I could say 12whether it was similar or not. What we do know of course 13is that that document never was implemented. 14Q.
[Mr Irving]
It was signed by both Roosevelt and Churchill, was it 15not? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I would have to see such a document. 17MR IRVING: Thank you. 18MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think five minutes is enough just to have a 19breathing space. 20(Short Adjournment).21MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, can we just identify the Kommissar 22document you refer to? I am not sure I know where that 23is. 24MR IRVING: The Kommissar order is in May 1941, I believe, 25about May 7th or May 5th. These March 1941 documents, 26I believe I am right in saying, are the kind of working

. P-40

1level papers, are they not? I do not know exactly what is 2before the witness. I do not have copies of these 3documents. 4MR JUSTICE GRAY: I only mention it and perhaps we can locate 5it in due course. 6MR IRVING: The Kommissar order is important because it was 7dictated by Hitler to General Jodl, I think, so it very 8clearly represents Hitler's thoughts. That would be 9useful if I do obtain a copy and bring it into court 10tomorrow. 11MR JUSTICE GRAY: If we can at some stage, yes. 12MR IRVING: May I ask what this particular document was that 13you were quoting from? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The State secretary's meeting. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
No, the actual one with the references to the 16Judao-Bolshevik intelligentsia? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This is footnote 137 from page 55 from the opinion by 18Peter Longerich. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
And there are two more documents that Mr Rampton wished 20you to consider, I believe? 21MR RAMPTON: Yes. They are just summarized on pages 55 and 2256. There in fact may be four, paragraphs 15.1, 15.2, two 23documents, and 15.3 on page 56, all in March of 1941. 24MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, thank you very much. Professor 25Browning, looking at those further documents, they do not, 26as it were, perhaps add anything, but they maybe confirm

. P-41

1what you have already said in relation to the 3rd March 2document. Is that fair?. 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. What I think they confirm is that Hitler does not see 4this, and does not want his generals and others to see it, 5as a conventional war, but that it has a very strong 6ideological dimension to it, and that the enemy to be 7destroyed is not just the Soviet army and its power to 8resist, but what he considers to be Judao-Bolshevism, 9communism, he uses different phrases. 10MR IRVING: Would it be right to say that at this time Hitler 11had knowledge of the manner in which the Soviet Union 12fought its wars, both its colonial wars as in Spain, for 13example, and also in the Finnish winter war of 1939 to 141940? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
What picture the German intelligence portrayed of the 16Soviet Union in all of this, is an area that others have 17studied, it is not an area that I think I could speak with 18authority. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
Would he be familiar with the activities of the Russian 20Kommissars within the Red Army hierarchy? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It is very likely he would have been given even a more 22lurid description than maybe would have been historically 23accepted but that is just speculation on my part. As 24I say, I cannot think of any documents at the moment that 25I could speak from with authority. 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
The Soviet Commissart system was a political agitator, am

. P-42

1I correct, within each Army unit to make sure that they 2pointed their guns in the right direction, roughly? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It was to establish, in a sense, a dual control of 4military units, someone who would be there with military 5expertise and someone with political, what they called 6reliability. 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
Did these Commissarts have an NKBD rank? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That I do not know. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
Can you estimate for the court approximately what 10percentage of these Commissarts were, in fact, Jewish? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have absolutely no idea. 12Q.
[Mr Irving]
No idea. Very well. But if a substantial percentage were 13either Jewish or were perceived by the Nazis to be Jewish, 14would that justify the kind of language that Hitler used 15in these military plannings for the coming Russian 16campaign? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, I do not see that Jews who were part of the NKBD, in a 18sense, often were totally secular Jews separate from the 19Jewish religious communities in these towns, that they had 20given up, in a sense, their Jewish identity. They were 21often all part of the Jewish communities that were going 22to face the onslaught of the genocide. So if you ask me 23is there a justification, my answer would be absolutely 24not. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you aware that, in fact, the Jewish community formed 26the backbone of the Red Army and of the NKBD?

. P-43

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I am certainly not aware of that and I doubt that that is 2the case. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you aware of the fact that 300 heroes of the Soviet 4Union of General's rank were Jewish? 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not know the number, but I do not know that it is 6relevant. 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
Welt, I am just trying to establish the fact there may 8have been a military reason for Hitler to have used this 9kind of language in preparing his Generals for the very 10ugly war that was to come. 11MR JUSTICE GRAY: If that were so, I just wonder, Professor 12Browning, whether the word "intelligenzija" would have 13been used? It is an odd word if one is talking in terms 14of talking military combat, is it not? Is that right or 15wrong? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, I think for Hitler he equates Bolshevism and the 17Communists with Jews, and in a sense he is talking about 18-- he sometimes used "leadership", sometimes he uses 19"intelligenzija" and in his mind these are intertwined. 20Q.
[Mr Justice Gray]
The point I was really putting to you is if one is talking 21about military extermination, if that is a fair way of 22putting it, one would expect to find a reference to not 23"intelligenzija" but "senior military personnel" or 24something of that kind? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, I mean, and that I think is there as well, but the 26fact that he adds these others would again reinforce the

. P-44

1point I am making that there is a strictly ideological 2racial dimension as well as a military dimension. 3Q.
[Mr Justice Gray]
More than a struggle of arms? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 5MR IRVING: Is it not right, however, also to say that in 6defeating the Soviet Union, he would not only have to 7defeat the Red Army, he would also have to defeat the 8Soviet hierarchy, the bureaucracy; he would have to 9eradicate that as well in order to implement the German 10colonial rule on those regions? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Have to eradicate what? 12Q.
[Mr Irving]
The bureaucracy, the entire Bolshevik hierarchy? 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That certainly was his goal, yes. 14Q.
[Mr Irving]
And the Nazis frequently used the phrase "Jewish 15Bolshevik"; it had become a bit of a slogan, had it not? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It was more than a slogan. It was a reflection of their 17mentality. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
My Lord, I think we have taken that question as far as we 19can go, unless your Lordship has further questions on 20those particular documents? 21MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, not at all. 22MR RAMPTON: May I just add this? It may save time later on. 23Your Lordship was asking about the guidelines ---- 24MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 25MR RAMPTON: --- for Barbarossa, conduct of troops. The date 26is 19th May 1941 and the relevant part is summarized in

. P-45

1and translated on page 5 of part 2 of Longerich. 2MR IRVING: Yes. This is not a Commissart order, but it is 3very much a parallel document. 4MR JUSTICE GRAY: Right. That is very helpful. 5MR IRVING: It effectively says that ordinary court procedures 6will not apply and this kind of thing. 7MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much, Mr Rampton. I was not 8aware of that at all. 9MR IRVING (To the witness): Are you familiar with those 10guidelines of May 19th 1941? Can you answer questions 11about it, roughly, were they specifically anti-Jewish in 12nature? 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
There are, I would say, three key orders, one is the 14Commissart order, one is the order concerning military 15jurisdiction and then there is the troop, guidelines for 16the troops, in which "Jews", simply the term "Jews", is 17put in the same line with saboteurs, guerrillas, so that, 18in effect, Jews are created as a class that can be equated 19on the basis of who they are with other targets who are 20defined by what they do. This, of course, is the essence 21of a racial genocide. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you familiar with the origins of these three documents 23you have mentioned? 24MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think you mention them in your own report 25actually, do you not? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I am not sure if I mention the three documents.

. P-46

1MR IRVING: I have not come across them in this witness report. 2MR JUSTICE GRAY: Paragraph 4.2.1, I thought it was. 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I may have mentioned them briefly. 4MR IRVING: I would have remembered them if -- I think they 5must be in the Longerich report, my Lord. 6MR RAMPTON: It is in Longerich. 7MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is certainly there, but this is another 8guideline, is it not, at 4.21? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
4.2.1, the Heydrich order of July 2rd, which we discussed 10yesterday, is his summary to the higher SS and police 11leaders of his oral instructions to the Einsatzgruppen 12leaders on June 17th, five days before the invasion. This 13is when he includes among those to be shot will be Jews in 14state and party positions. 15MR IRVING: This is the document your Lordship wanted 16translated yesterday. 17MR JUSTICE GRAY: These are guidelines at that stage? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. This is the guidelines of early July -- in fact, the 19guidelines of late June, prior to the invasion, because he 20is summarising what was already given to the 21Einsatzgruppen on the eve of the invasion. 22MR IRVING: This is Heydrich, of course, who is two or three 23rungs down the hierarchy, is he not? 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Very close to Himmler. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. The question, witness, which I asked you just before 26that little discursive, are you familiar with the military

. P-47

1planning documents or working papers that led to these 2three documents we were just talking about, the 3guidelines, not these ones, but the May 19th guidelines? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have, I think, briefly seen in the Hans Adolf Jacobsen 5study his account of the emergence of the Commissart order 6and the Krasvnik(?) article on the emergence of the 7military jurisdiction order. I have not worked on those 8in the archives, but I have seen other historians' studies 9of those two particular cases. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you familiar with the private diary of General Franz 11Halder, the Chief of the German Army General Staff? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, I have read parts of that. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
Would you agree that in that private diary, which was 14written by him in shorthand (so it was of a very 15confidential nature) it emerges that the German Army were 16the source of the inspiration for those documents, in 17other words, it did not come from Hitler down to the Army; 18it went from the German Army effectively up to Hitler or 19up to the German High Command, they wanted ---- 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I cannot say that that was my impression from Halder, but 21I would have to disagree in the sense that we have 22Hitler/Jodl conversation in early March, in which Jodl 23then comes back to the Generals and says, "Hitler wants us 24to do something in terms of the" ---- 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
The Commissarts? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
--- "Commissarts" and the negotiations over the shaping of

. P-48

1the military jurisdiction order comes I think from a 2similar instigation from above, that the Army is not to be 3involved in disciplining the behaviour of troops against 4the civilian population which previously would have been 5primed under martial law. 6Q.
[Mr Irving]
Would you identify Jodl to the court, please? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Jodl is, if I get it right, the Chief of Staff of the High 8Command. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
Was he Chief of the Operations Staff at the German High 10Command. 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
High Command, not the Army, the Arm Forces High Command, 12the global one. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
And if Hitler, as Supreme Commander, was having this 14discussion with the Chief of Staff of the German High 15Command, then it must have been a discussion of a military 16nature rather than ideological nature? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Not if he wants the Army to take part in and not to be a 18problem concerning this war of destruction. If the 19military is to take part in a wider kind of war, not to 20conceive of this war is a war like they fought against the 21French, and that they are to remove themselves from or to 22give to their own officers a new understanding that 23certain kinds of behaviour, the troops will no longer be 24subject to the jurisdiction of military court martial and 25will not be criminalized. Now, this has to go to the 26Army. But that certainly cannot be said to be ----

. P-49

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
But this is the military discipline? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, but it is an issue of military discipline that is 3completely related to the notion of this wider war of 4destruction. It is not compartmentalized to military 5operations but to the ideological war. 6Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is it not likely, in fact, that Hitler would have these 7discussions with the German High Command on the military 8side of the problem and he would have similar discussions 9with Himmler on the ideological side of the problem, and 10these documents only refer, therefore, to the military 11side of the problem. 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I disagree totally. That certainly is the postwar plea of 13the German Generals of self-exculpation, but I think the 14documents we see is that he makes very clear to the 15Generals that this a multi-dimensional war, and that he 16does not compartmentalize. He wants the Army to revise 17its multiple court martial code. He wants the Army to 18take part in the finding of the Commissarts and either 19shooting them or turning them over to the SS, that he does 20not compartmentalize this war. 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
We so far have not mentioned one very important conference 22that took place around this time after Barbarossa, which 23is the conference of July 16th 1941. You are familiar 24with this? 25MR JUSTICE GRAY: If there is a document, can we go -- I am 26quite keen to pick up these points and not deal with

. P-50

1them ---- 2MR IRVING: It certainly be referenced by Longerich. It is not 3referenced by this witness in his report, but it is one 4with which he is quite familiar, my Lord. 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: It does not make it any easier, but if we can 6identify and locate these documents. 7MR IRVING: I was going to ask one question on this conference 8really which is -- are you familiar with the conference to 9which I am referring? 10MR JUSTICE GRAY: This is for my benefit rather than yours or 11Professor Browning's. 12MR IRVING: Are you familiar with the conference to which I am 13referring? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This is July 16th conference? 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
July 16th. Hitler, Rosenberg, Martin Bormann wrote a 16memorandum on it? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Lammers, I believe, was present. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
Lammers was present, Himmler was present? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, Himmler is not present. Himmler met with Hitler on 2015th and left for Lublin. 21MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry, I am going to ask you to pause. I 22think I really must have the document, if only a reference 23to it. 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It is a Nuremberg document. I think it is L... 25MR RAMPTON: I can help. Page 57. Longerich 1, paragraph 2615.7.

. P-51

1MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry to interrupt you, Mr Irving, but 2I have to try to digest all this and it is easier. 3MR IRVING: Problem is, my Lord, that both the witness and 4I have all this in our heads. 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but it is quite important that you get 6it into my head too. 7MR IRVING: It is not an easy task. 8MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry to hear you say that. 9MR RAMPTON: If your Lordship wants to see the German? 10MR IRVING: My Lord, the reason I said this is because it has 11taken me 35 years to get it into my head, the whole 12history 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 14MR RAMPTON: It has only taken me nine months! It is 4.2, if 15your Lordship would like to see another splodgy German 16document. 17MR JUSTICE GRAY: It may be that now you have given me the 18reference here, I can follow it up. Is it paragraph 15? 19MR RAMPTON: Paragraph 15.7. 20MR JUSTICE GRAY: Then it is in the transcript at least so 21I can go back to it. Yes, Mr Irving, follow that up if 22you want to. 23MR IRVING: All that I want to say is, I mean, I have no idea 24where this question and answer is now going to lead. It 25may harm, it may help me. This was a very important, top 26level conference deciding areas of responsibility in the

. P-52

1Eastern territories; is that right? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Immediately after that conference, the next, they issued 3the Fuhrer decrees delineating the responsibilities of 4Himmler and Rosenberg, the SS and the civil administration 5for the occupied territories, Soviet territories. 6Q.
[Mr Irving]
And this, effectively, gave Himmler absolutely police 7control over all these regions, is that correct, the 8executive control? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It put the SS in a very dominant position. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
In the rear areas? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Actually, I think it gave him powers -- at least 12Einsatzgruppen already had powers to operate all the way 13up to the front, and this established in a sense that that 14would become permanent as the SS positions are changed 15from mobile units to a permanent police structure on 16occupied territory. 17Q.
[Mr Irving]
I think that, Professor, you once mentioned that the 18Jewish problem was mentioned in this conference, but that 19is not correct, is it? 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not think he does mention that. He does talk about 21"shooting anyone who looks askance at us and isn't it 22good that Stalin has called for a guerilla war because it 23gives us the pretext", I believe is the word, "to shoot 24anyone that we want?". I do not believe that I have said 25that ---- 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
That is a very interesting phrase. What was the phrase he

. P-53

1used? "It gives us the pretext to shoot"---- 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
"To shoot anyone who so much as looks askance at us" I 3believe is the ... 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
"Schief schaut" 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: The German is there on page 57 if you want to 6look at the footnote. 7MR IRVING: Effectively, "Anybody who stands in our way or 8looks like he might stand in our way"? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, it does not even say "stand in our way", "looks 10askance at us", I believe, is a much wider shooting 11licence than "stands in our way". 12MR JUSTICE GRAY: What does "nur schief schaut" mean? 13MR IRVING: "Looks askance", literally. 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
"Gives us a twisted look" or "looks askance at us". 15MR IRVING: Anybody whose face does not fit would be another 16way of saying it? It is a pretty broad kind of 17directive. 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It is an open shooting licence. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes, but there is no reference to the Jewish problem at 20all? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Not a specific reference, no. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. Just that Himmler has now given, effectively, carte 23blanche? 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
We will deal with that, I think, in more detail, my Lord, 26when we come to Longerich?

. P-54

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
You were still asking me my view of the decision-making 2process. Do you wish me to continue? 3MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 4MR IRVING: If you have had after thoughts, yes. My view (and 5I would wish you to correct it) is that the German Army 6provided the impetus for these orders, and that this is 7evidenced in the papers of the German High Command where 8the position papers are, effectively, written by German 9Army officers and also from the diary of General Franz 10Halder. In other words, that the initiative did not come 11from Hitler? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I would disagree. I would say that the open invitation 13for these proposals comes from Hitler and, in terms of 14guidelines and policies, it is the response of the SS and 15the military and the economic planners to turn into 16reality this vague vision of a war of destruction in an 17ideological crusade against the Soviet Union. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
When you say you disagree, is this just a gut feeling or 19do you have any specific document you want to reference? 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think we have both the Jodl/Hitler meeting and Jodl's 21response, and we have the meeting of March 30th with the 22Generals in which he again makes clear to them his desire 23to have a war of destruction, a war that is not fought by 24the ground rules of a conventional war. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
The latter meeting is, of course, recorded in detail in 26the diary of General Halder, is it not?

. P-55

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 2MR JUSTICE GRAY: Again it would help me, rather than just 3having this ---- 4MR IRVING: Interesting discussion. 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- debate between the two of you if ---- 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That would be 15.3, page 56, of Longerich, again where he 7emphasises the dual nature of the war, the struggle of two 8world views against one another. 9MR JUSTICE GRAY: The Jodl/Hitler meeting, can you pinpoint 10that for me? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
March 3rd. 12MR JUSTICE GRAY: I mean, in terms of where I find a 13reference. 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
15.1. 15MR RAMPTON: Page 55, my Lord. 16MR IRVING: Would it be correct to describe these features as 17pep talks by Hitler to his Generals to fire them up for 18the coming campaign? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I would say they are more than pep talks. I would 20say they are a setting of expectations and, as you know, I 21have tried to develop this model of Hitler eliciting, 22setting a level of what he expects and that that brings 23responses and proposals that are brought to him. I think 24this is a very good example of that dialectic. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. But he does not say, "We are going to invade the 26Soviet Union so that we can destroy Jews"?

. P-56

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
Nothing as crude as that? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
What he is saying is, "We are confronted by a Judaio 5Bolshevik enemy, and that we will destroy the Judaio 6Bolshevik intelligenzija and the leadership class and 7whatever, and that is what he is effectively in all these 8documents he is saying, he is just mapping out who the 9enemy is going to be? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This is not yet an explicit instruction to systematically 11kill all the Jewish population on Soviet territory. 12Q.
[Mr Irving]
Even in this important meeting of July 16th 1941, there is 13still no such instruction at any rate recorded in the 14memorandum by Martin Bormann? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, in this case we have no smoking pistol document -- I 16have declared that often -- that we are working from 17inference, and the inference we draw is very similar to 18what you did about the November 30th meeting. Himmler and 19Hitler meet, Himmler gives an order. As you put it, it 20would be perverse not to assume a connection between them. 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
Except that we now unfortunately ---- 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Find out the meeting came after rather than before. 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
The meeting came after the telephone call, yes. 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
In this case the meeting, I say, comes before. We know 25that Himmler meets with Hitler and then leaves for Lublin 26on 15th, that the others meet with Hitler on 16th, and

. P-57

1what follows thereafter is very quickly that Himmler 2vastly increases the number of people behind the Front in 3terms of putting the police battalions under the command 4of the higher SS and police leaders, of throwing in two of 5his brigades of his own and authorizing the raising of the 6auxiliaries and that within a very short period after that 7we begin to be able to document the systematic killing. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
And then it is an inference, but I think it is one that 10circumstantial evidence supports, that there is a 11connection in that period of July 16th to ---- 12Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is not the likely inference that Himmler had received from 13Hitler the carte blanche that he had sought and Himmler 14strutted into occupied Russia and told his often teenage 15thugs who were wearing SS uniform, "I have carte blanche. 16Go ahead and deal with these people and pacify the rear 17areas"? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
In fact, that is not what we know of how Himmler does it. 19Himmler says, "This terrible burden has been laid on my 20shoulders by the Fuhrer. This is the hardest thing I have 21ever been given to do." He does not strut; he shares 22crocodile tears ---- 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
1944 he says that, does he not? 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, but in '43 too. We are talking about -- what we know 25about Himmler and how he speaks to others about this task, 26he does strut in and say, "Boy, aren't I lucky? I can now

. P-58

1kill them". He comes and says: "The Fuhrer has laid this 2burden on my shoulders. This is a terrible thing we have 3to do, but we must fight this battle now so other 4generations do not". 5Q.
[Mr Irving]
He says this just once, am I right? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We have the Posen speech where I think he says it on ---- 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
October 1943. 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
--- both occasions. But this is, I think, an accurate 9reflection of how Himmler speaks to others about this. So 10your portrayal that Himmler is the eager go-getter is not 11supported by how he talks when we can document it to the 12other SS leaders about his role and responsibility. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
The documents are very thin, though, are they not? We do 14not have a whole sheaf of documents to draw these 15inferences from; there are a lot of gaps? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
There are gaps, but this is a very strong document. Here 17he is talking to all of the SS leaders and this is the 18stance that he takes to them. 19MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think, Mr Irving, just so that you know -- 20you may know this from the transcript -- draws the 21distinction between after October 1943 and before. 22I think he accepts that Hitler knew and, indeed, 23authorized, I think. 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
But this is a different question, my Lord. The question 25here is how did Himmler act towards his SS Generals? 26MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. As I understand the way you put it,

. P-59

1what he was saying in October 1943 and later is consistent 2with the interpretation you put on the slightly thin 3documentation of 41/42. Is that a fair summary? 4MR RAMPTON: It may be relevant to point out ---- 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I have an answer first? Is that right? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, I am saying that in so far as we want to know how 7Himmler talked to others about this, it was not that 8"Hitler has given me carte blanche", it is that "Hitler 9has laid a duty on me, it is a hard duty". It is not one 10that he portrayed himself as eager to do, but one that he 11felt obligated to do. That was an answer to the scenario 12that Mr Irving gave of an eager Himmler running with the 13ball with very little authorization from Hitler. 14MR IRVING: Is it not also right to say that on one occasion 15Himmler specifically says to I think Berger, "The Fuhrer 16has ordered these territories to be made free of Jews. 17This serious grave order that Fuhrer has placed on my 18shoulders nobody can take off me"? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That comes end of July of 1942. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
1942, which is closer to the time we are talking about? 21MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that what you are going raise? 22MR RAMPTON: Yes, because the date came out wrong first of all. 23It is 28th July 1942. 24MR IRVING: Yes, and that when Himmler is, therefore, talking 25about the order, he is talking about the blanket order to 26get the Jews out of here, and the way that Himmler then

. P-60

1interpreted that is where you and I begin to differ. 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We differ a great deal on how one interprets that, yes. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
But, Professor, I remind you that yesterday I showed you 4one coloured page photocopy of an intercept, did I not, 5and I suggested to you that we have hundreds of thousands 6of such intercepts in the British archives now, and 7I suggested that neither my expert, Dr John Fox or Richard 8Brightman or any of the experts who have waded through 9these hundreds of thousands of intercepts of top level and 10medium level and low level messages, is this correct, has 11found even one inference, one document, which supports the 12inference that Hitler was behind this? 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have not read through them, but no one has said that 14these intercepts, the place that we have found such a 15thing, and we have not found the smoking pistol document. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
So the more documents that do come our way, whether from 17Minsk or Riga or Moscow or from Bletchley Park or 18wherever, and yet we still fail to find even a luke warm 19gun, let alone a smoking gun, indicates that possibly 20I may be right and my opponents may be incorrect, or, at 21any rate, I am justified in suspecting, would you agree? 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, because I do not think one would ever expect to find 23such a thing in a radio intercept. These are, from what I 24have seen of them, very specific things. They are not 25general points at which, for instance, Hitler has ordered 26Barbarossa or decisions of that level.

. P-61

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
You refer -- I am now coming on to Adolf Eichmann, unless, 2my Lord, you wish to ask further questions? 3MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. Take your own course. 4MR IRVING: I now come on to Adolf Eichmann. What reliance can 5be placed on his writings, do you think? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have used him as a very important source because we 7have ---- 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes, understandably. 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
--- a collection of documents from him that stretch over a 10period of time and were given under different conditions 11before his arrest in Argentina under arrest by the 12Israelis, the private notes that are part of his 13attorney's, Nachlass that is in Koblenz, that subject to 14the confidentiality that were only between him and his 15attorney and were not in the possession of the Israelis. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
There is a lot of paper then? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
There is a lot of -- and now, apparently, we have learned 18there is about 1300 or more pages of notes that we have 19never seen yet. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
When you were in Koblenz, did you have the opportunity to 21look at the 600 pages that I gave to the German government 22which I found in Argentina? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. I have not seen those. I do not know what the 24overlap is between those and ---- 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
They are similar to Sasson material. Would you 26characterize for the court what kind of witness Adolf

. P-62

1Eichmann was in all these stages? What kind of person -- 2was he robust, was he servile, just characterize him. 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I would say that there are elements of both, that he is 4very robust and contentious in protesting against certain 5aspects of what he is being accused. He has no problem 6saying Hoess is lying about him, that he did not be 7involved there; that he engages in a vigorous denial of 8certain parts of the documentation the Israeli 9interrogators at court show him. 10 On the other hand, he comes and says things that 11there is no documentation for, admits to things that they 12would never have known otherwise, except that they are 13repeated consistently in all of his stories, and it is a 14story he sticks to from beginning to end for which we 15would not know other than that he consistently told that 16story. 17Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. There are plausible elements and there are 18implausible elements, is that right? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
In any eyewitness testimony, there will be elements that 20are more plausible than others. I think a fair amount of 21the Eichmann testimony is plausible. Again, it would 22depend on when he is reacting to particular documents they 23present, sometimes he takes a very defensive position, and 24in other areas he is very self-incriminating and very 25forthcoming. 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
Hannah Arred in her book "The Banality of Evil" I think

. P-63

1refers to him as being almost complacent and compliant and 2anxious to please? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not agree with her characterization there. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
You do not agree with that? 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. He is quite vigorous in defending himself in many 6areas. 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
I had the dubious fortune some time ago of coming into 8possession of his personal copy of Rudolf Hoess' memoirs. 9I will pass to you, if I may? 10MR RAMPTON: May I enquire whether this is, I do not know, this 11is an entirely open enquiry, whether this is part of 12Mr Irving's discovery? 13MR IRVING: It was in my box called "Judenfrage" but if you 14wish ---- 15MR JUSTICE GRAY: This is the original you are handing up, is 16it? 17MR IRVING: This is a photocopy of it which I have retained, my 18Lord. 19MR JUSTICE GRAY: A photocopy of the version you discovered or 20were given? 21MR IRVING: That is correct, my Lord. It is only interesting 22in one very minor respect. 23MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, that is what I thought. 24MR IRVING: Pages 13 and 14 of your Lordship's little bundle 25which I gave your Lordship this morning. This is, of 26course, the published edition of Hoess' memoirs which you

. P-64

1are probably familiar with? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. The handwriting on that has been identified as the 4handwriting of Adolf Eichmann, as is evident also from the 5internal evidence of the comments that he makes. The 6original is in the possession of a friend of mine in 7Germany. He bought it in a store. 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
OK. I am, of course, not an handwriting expert. 9MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, you are happy with this, are you? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
And so I cannot confirm or deny. 11MR RAMPTON: I have never seen it before. I do not have a 12translation. 13MR IRVING: I just wish to refer to page 14. 14MR RAMPTON: But what is puzzling me about this is if this is a 15selective use of the document, it may be that there are a 16considerable number of other comments by Eichmann of which 17Mr Irving is aware on these memoirs which we ought to see 18because they are relevant. 19MR IRVING: I would be very happy to make available a copy to 20the Defence and I will leave this copy with them overnight 21and they can make a copy if they wish. 22MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is fair. I think Mr Rampton is happy 23you should make the point that you make on these two 24pages. 25MR IRVING: I just wish to put this to the witness. I 26just draw your attention, witness, to page handwritten 14

. P-65

1which is page 122 of the book. 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
122. 3MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you give us the context, Mr Irving? 4MR IRVING: The killing of the Russian prisoners in 1941 5I think he is talking about. This is by Rudolf Hoess. 6MR JUSTICE GRAY: And he had been ordered to carry it out, is 7that right? He, Hoess, had ---- 8MR IRVING: "It was ordered that I had to carry it out", writes 9Hoess, "but I have to say openly that this gassing had a 10calming effect on me, as in the near future we had to 11begin with the mass destruction of the Jews too, and 12neither Eichmann nor I was clear about how we were to deal 13with these masses", is that roughly the sense of that 14final sentence on page ---- 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Roughly, yes. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
And underneath it in his appalling handwriting Adolf 17Eichmann has written -- can you read the words: "Ich war 18gar nichts zustandig"? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
What does that mean? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I was not at all competent, this was not at all my 22jurisdiction. 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
And in the margin next to the footnote he was written just 24one word "falsch"? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Correct. 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
In other words, Eichmann, who ought to have known, if

. P-66

1I can use one of the phrases Mr Rampton likes, disputes 2the version given by Rudolf Hoess. In private, he does 3not know that David Irving is going to come into 4possession of that years later, so can we assume therefore 5that there is some conflict in the evidence that Hoess 6writes? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. This is the major case where Eichmann contests 8vigorously the evidence the Israelis bring to him and 9present this before him. For instance, in the handwritten 10notes to his attorney, he says: "Hoess is the arch liar. 11I have nothing to do with Hoess, with his death camp or 12his gas chambers". That is in Eichmann's handwriting and 13Serwateus' notes. He disputes having anything to do with 14Hoess's gas chambers. He does not deny the existence of 15gas chambers but confirms Auschwitz, but he says that was 16not my thing. 17MR JUSTICE GRAY: The falsehood is his own involvement, 18Eichmann's own involvement. 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. He is saying that Hoess is laying responsibility on 20him for playing a part in the selection of the gas chamber 21site, and the selection of the type of gas at Auschwitz, 22and in this regard I think Eichmann is correct and that 23Hoess is utterly wrong. 24MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is the means, not the end, in other 25words. 26MR IRVING: You use the interesting phrase, of course, "Hoess's

. P-67

1gas chambers" and that Eichmann ---- 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This is Eichmann's phrase; what I quoted to you from 3memory is what Eichmann wrote to Serwateus in the 4Serwateus papers. 5Q.
[Mr Irving]
Serwateus was his lawyer in Israel? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is there any hint there, therefore, that people like Hoess 8and the other concentration camp commandants were loose 9canons, and that they were doing things their own way 10without -- ? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not think that there is a hint of that at all. The 12hint is that Hoess is trying to shift blame elsewhere and 13that Hoess has a very bad memory. 14Q.
[Mr Irving]
Or a conveniently bad memory perhaps? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, Hoess has many self-incriminating things. Where 16Hoess's testimony is particularly unreliable is anything 17related to dating. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
Dating and numbers? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Numbers as well, and to, in this issue certainly, 20Eichmann's role in all of this. 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is it not correct that Hoess, in fact, fluctuates between 222.8 million and 1 million, and then back to 2.7 million, 23as late as March 1947? Before his execution, he is back 24to 2.7 million again killed in Auschwitz. 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not remember the exact figures but I believe he does 26give fluctuating figures.

. P-68

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
Can any kind of credence be attached to figures like that 2when they vary by such enormous amounts? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This would be a case where you would look at the testimony 4and say that, when Hoess is talking about dates and 5figures, one would not use it as reliable. When he is 6talking about experiences that he recalls with great 7vividness, one would say this is more likely to be 8something that one at least must look at, can we 9corroborate this? It would not mean that everything Hoess 10says is wrong, but it would mean that, in the areas of 11dating and where he is trying to share responsibilities 12with others, one must use it with great caution. 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: You do not know this, Professor Browning. We 14looked at the 2.8 million figure in some detail and it is 15quite clear that that is actually not his own account but 16it is what he has been told by others. 17MR IRVING: It did actually creep up again, the 2.8 just before 18he was hanged. He appeared to be readily flexible and 19this is what I am getting at; I suppose "suggestible" is 20what I am aiming at, the word that these witnesses -- you 21yourself have said that you had to pick and choose what 22they wrote, effectively? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
You had to make judgments about it. "Pick and choose" 24sounds as if one was picking and choosing for my 25convenience rather than my ability to explain in terms of 26----

. P-69

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
We will come to that in a minute, Professor Browning, when 2we come to Gerstein. 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We will get there but, in terms of ability to bring 4reasons as to why you think parts of it are more reliable 5than others. 6Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. Is there any reason why, when somebody is in 7captivity on trial for one's life, one might write things, 8either deliberately or inadvertently, that were not true, 9do you think? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This is a possibility but, again, one looks at it and 11judges. If one is already sentenced to be hanged and 12there is, in a sense, nothing further they can threaten 13you with, then wonders one why would one go through the 14business of writing out a long handwritten document. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
Have you not read large numbers of interrogations and 16pretrial interrogations yourself, where you have marvelled 17at some of the statements that these people have made? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Can you give me a context? 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
For example, self-incriminating statements which, as you 20said in the case of Eichmann, nobody knew what he was 21admitting there. Have you never wondered why people would 22make these statements? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think in cases I have used he is telling the truth. 24I think he is relating---- 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
Obviously. Otherwise you would not have used them. But 26does it not occur to you that sometimes people make

. P-70

1astonishing statements, self-incriminatory statements? 2The most extraordinary examples are, for example, in the 3Soviet show trials. It is a psychological problem. I am 4just trying to assail the credibility of eyewitness 5evidence basically. That is what I am getting at. 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Certainly in Soviet trials where part of the protocol, in 7a sense, is to have a signed statement at the end. 8I would not put great weight on something collected in 91937 and 38 in which a witness said, "Oh yes, I was part 10of the Trotskyite conspiracy", or whatever. 11Q.
[Mr Irving]
Or American agent. Do not the same kind of duresses 12prevail when you are in a cell in a bleak prison in 13Nuremberg and the Americans come to you and say, well, we 14can guarantee you will not get the death sentence if you 15sign this affidavit which we have taken from your 16testimony? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I would not accept that Americans came and said, "Sign 18this or we are going to kill you". 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you familiar with the case of Dr Friedrich Gauss, who 20was Ribbentrop's legal adviser? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, I am not. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you familiar with Dr Robert Kempton, who said, "If you 23do not sign this we are going to turn you over to the 24Russians"? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, I am not familiar with that. 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
Obviously I cannot develop that particular line. If you

. P-71

1are not familiar with that case I cannot develop it. In 2later trials in Germany we have another problem, do we 3not, and this is the passage of years? 20 or 30 years 4pass. You have referenced in your own very interesting 5expert report a number of German war crimes trials 6conducted quite properly by the German government in the 71960s and even in the 1970s? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
How reliable is that kind of evidence being given by 10Germans who have been taken out of their little bedsits 11somewhere in Ingoldstadt or somewhere and they find 12themselves on trial, they are going to be locked away for 1320 years, and they are being asked to remember something 14that happened 30 years before? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think that much of it is very reliable. They did not 16have to give testimony. They had counsel, they did not 17have to, under German law, give self-incriminating 18testimony. They could remained silent. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
how many did remain silent? 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Virtually none. A few. The document that we see in the 21Chelmno gas vans, the villager who signs that refused to 22talk and nothing happened to him. He is one who did not 23get brought to trial. 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
So the man who signed the famous memorandum about the 2597,000 killed, is this the document you are referring to? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This is the document and this is the case where someone

. P-72

1refusing to talk ---- 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
Nothing happened to him? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
They said, we have not enough evidence to contest that he 4contributed in a causal way to the killing, even if he 5knew of it, and therefore we have no grounds. In fact, 6there was a case where the one who did not talk did much 7better than his colleagues in the motor pool who did talk, 8incriminated themselves and were tried. 9MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I do not want to interrupt you 10unduly. I am not finding this terribly helpful because we 11all know that eyewitness evidence has to be looked at very 12carefully. Everyone agrees on that. 13MR IRVING: If you think I have laboured the point too strongly 14then I shall not bring it up again. 15MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is not really that, but illusive 16references which are not really followed up do not help me 17very much, besides which it appears to me we are straying 18perhaps a little bit from what I think is the intended 19structure of your cross-examination, which really goes to 20the case for saying that Hitler knew about the 21extermination. I am not keeping you to any tramlines. 22MR IRVING: I was trying to undermine the quality of his 23sources by referring to the fact that a very large number 24of the sources which he refers to in his report in the 25footnotes appear to be ---- 26MR JUSTICE GRAY: Not in relation to Hitler's knowledge. I do

. P-73

1not think eyewitnesses come into that at all, do they? 2MR IRVING: It is certainly in connection with the numbers and 3I was just about to get on to the 97,000 figure again, 4when your Lordship intervened. 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Develop that, but can you help me by 6giving me a little bit more information about which figure 7you are talking about, given by whom, in what context? 8MR IRVING: This is one of two letters. One is the Greiser 9letter of May 1st 1942, Greiser to Himmler. Are you 10familiar with that document? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 12MR RAMPTON: Page 38 of Professor Browning's report, my Lord. 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you. 14MR IRVING: In that letter Greiser says that we shall have 15within, I believe, two to three months killed 100,000 16effectively. That is what he is saying, is he not? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
Has he already started by then? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. Chelmno has opened in early December 1941. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
Does he actually refer to Chelmno in that document? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He does not refer to Chelmno in that document. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
We do not know whether he is actually referring to the 23document or actually to Chelmno, and whether even one of 24those 100,000 has died at that time or not. 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He does not say explicitly but Chelmno is the operating 26death camp in the region to which he is referring, the

. P-74

1Warthegau. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
There is a reasonable inference? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 4MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do not assume too much. You have been, as 5you say, for 34 years on this topic. 6MR IRVING: Not on the Holocaust. 7MR JUSTICE GRAY: I appreciate that, but you know what I mean. 8I have had rather less long. So can you just help me who 9Greiser was? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Greiser is the head of---- 11MR IRVING: The Gauleiter of the Warthegau. 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Gauleiter of the Warthegau. Lodz and Chelmno are located 13in the Warthegau. 14MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you. 15MR IRVING: The second document is the one -- you must help me 16on this -- with the 97,000 figure in it? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I believe it is June 6th 1942. 18MR RAMPTON: June 5th? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
June 5th. 20MR IRVING: 1942, correct. 21MR RAMPTON: Perhaps in this case we should maybe get the 22document. 23MR IRVING: I agree. There are two rather odd features about 24the document I want to draw your Lordship's attention to. 25MR RAMPTON: It is in the second volume. 26MR JUSTICE GRAY: I hope it is in J or L.

. P-75

1MR RAMPTON: I think it is in the main bundle now. 2MR JUSTICE GRAY: If Greiser's letter is there too, then 3I would quite like a reference to that at the same time. 4MR IRVING: Do you have the actual document in front of you? 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just a moment. Let us catch up.. 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, I do not. 7MR RAMPTON: One starts at page 92 of the new Browning file 8which is Greiser's letter. 9MR JUSTICE GRAY: You tell me about a new Browning file. I 10feel I am the last to know about it. 11MR RAMPTON: Tab 7, I am sorry. 12MR IRVING: My Lord, meanwhile I can tell you what I am aiming 13at here. 14MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us pause a little, Mr Irving. You have 15to be patient with us. 16MR RAMPTON: Then the motor pool letter, the 97,000, is on the 17following page, I hope, 93 to 97. 18MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I may have misunderstood. Are we in 19tab 7 of L1. 20MR RAMPTON: Tab 7 of L1. 21MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 97. 22MR RAMPTON: Starting at page 92, that is Greiser to Himmler of 231st May in a printed form. We have not got a copy of the 24original. 25MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. And the other one, Mr Rampton? 26MR RAMPTON: Then the very next page, 93, is the 97,000 letter

. P-76

1of 5th June 1942. 2MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you. 3MR IRVING: I am just going to wave one little flag about the 4document's oddities. This is the document containing the 597,000 figure, correct? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Correct. 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
Do you see at the top it says "Einzigste Ausfertigung" in 8German? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
Have you ever seen that designation on a document anywhere 11else in your entire archival experience? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not recall seeing it. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. "Einzigste Ausfertigung" which means the "onlyest" 14copy. 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, the motor pool sergeants were not terribly literate. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
I take that point. Can you see that the document begins 17with the sentence: Beispielsweise, for example? The very 18first sentence in the document. 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, it says, "seit December", yes. 20MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry, I have not got that. Where are 21you? 22MR IRVING: In the very first sentence of the document, my 23Lord. 24MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Seit December". 25MR IRVING: The one with 97,000 figure in it. 26MR JUSTICE GRAY: Since December.

. P-77

1MR IRVING: No. The word I am looking at is "Beispielsweise". 2It is a letter beginning with the phrase, for example, 3"Beispielsweise", it is just lifted out of the middle of 4nowhere. Have you ever received a letter from somebody 5beginning with the word "Beispielsweise", 6Professor Browning? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
Or "for example"? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
But I think to have to realize Mr Schuss was not a college 10graduate, that these are people who are working in the 11motor pool in Berlin, and that the tone, as I see it, is 12someone who is trying to emulate what he thinks is proper 13bureaucratic German and he in fact is someone is not a 14bureaucrat, he is a mechanic. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
He was not stupid because, as you say, he was the only one 16who was not punished in this entire horrible affair. 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
You have to remember that "Beispielweise" comes after the 18subject, which is they are talking about technical 19changes. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I presume that this is a result of a conversation people 22have had, there has been a meeting. 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
And someone has said, write it up. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
OK. 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We get a very ----

. P-78

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
Can you do a rough calculation of how many people were 2being killed per van per day? 3MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just pause, Mr Irving. If I may say so, you 4must just let me absorb the points you are making. 5MR IRVING: I am just planting suspicion. 6MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are casting doubt on this, partly because 7it has "Einsigste Ausfertigung" on the top and 8I understand that, but I am not sure I am really following 9your point on "Beispielsweise". 10MR IRVING: It is an unusual turn of phrase to start a letter 11with, my Lord. 12MR JUSTICE GRAY: Why is it unusual? He is picking three 13trucks, is he not, to give an example of the sort of 14numbers that are being processed if that is the right 15word, in the special trucks. 16MR IRVING: I agree, my Lord, but you would normally expect 17that in the second paragraph of a letter. In the first 18paragraph he says, well, we are going to have troubles 19doing this, that and the other, troubles with the trucks, 20the exhaust hoses are getting corroded and all the rest of 21it, for example, but in fact his letter begins with the 22word "for example". This is the oddity about it. But I 23can do no more than ---- 24MR JUSTICE GRAY: You rely on that as an indication that this 25is not an authentic document? 26MR IRVING: I am trying to plant a seed of suspicion in your

. P-79

1Lordship's mind, that is all. 2MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are not succeeding at the moment because 3I would have thought, if you are trying to create a 4document that is going to deceive anybody, you would not 5do what you say is something obviously inappropriate, 6which is to refer to an example in the first paragraph. 7MR IRVING: It would be improper for me to do anything else. 8Mr Rampton will object if I do anything else because 9I have already stated that I fully accept that this 10document refers to the homicide of large numbers of human 11beings in gas vans. 12MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where are we going? 13MR IRVING: We are going to look at the number, my Lord, the 1497,000. 15MR JUSTICE GRAY: So you accept this is an authentic document? 16MR IRVING: For the purposes of this morning, yes. 17MR RAMPTON: I do have to know sooner or later, and so does 18your Lordship, whether Mr Irving accepts for the purposes 19of this trial that this is an authentic document. If it 20is a forgery, we need to know why he says it is a forgery. 21MR JUSTICE GRAY: You do not say it is a forgery? 22MR IRVING: No. 23MR JUSTICE GRAY: Then we can forget about Beispielsweise, can 24we not? 25MR IRVING: But it also helps to address the court's attention 26to the fact whether this witness had competently

. P-80

1questioned the integrity of the documents we are 2confronted with. 3MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is not a valid criticism of him if you do 4not question it. 5MR IRVING: I personally would question it but not for the 6purposes of this morning's hearing. Shall we just proceed 7to the number? 8MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us do the numbers. 97,000 -- what is 9wrong with that? 10MR IRVING: I am sorry about that detour. 97,000 people killed 11in three vans in what space of time? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
From December to June, this would be six months, by my 13calculation. 14Q.
[Mr Irving]
Six months? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are these regular German army diesel trucks, five ton 17trucks or something? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
They refer to two and then a third, and I think they had 19-- we do not know the capacity of two of them because 20they were not either the Opal or the Saurer trucks. They 21were apparently converted Renault. Then they brought in a 22Saurer truck, which is the biggest model and could carry 23I think 50 to 80 people. The Opal was 30 to 50. We do 24not know the capacity of the actual two trucks that 25were---- 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
From the descriptions we have, it did not actually do it

. P-81

1on the spot. They were loaded aboard, the victims, and 2they were driven off into the country side for a couple of 3hours and then they were gassed on the way? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. As best we can tell they loaded them, gassed them 5there, or for a while ran the engines, and then drove them 6off. 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
So it was not a long way from Chelmno to the forest. 9I think it is two kilometres or 3 kilometres. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
I have read 20 kilometres. 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That is not correct at all. I have driven it myself. It 12is not far, and one would have to do a considerable amount 13of the time needed to kill the people, one would have to 14remain in the courtyard unless you wanted to run the 15engines for a prolonged period after you arrived in the 16forest camp. 17Q.
[Mr Irving]
Have you ever calculated the quantities of gasoline or 18petrol that would be needed for these kind of trips? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Not knowing the fuel consumption of the various truck 20models, no, I have not made a calculation. 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
Does it strike you as being a very economical way of 22killing people? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think this camp was probably very inexpensive to run in 24comparison to what they were taking in, property and 25getting in labour from the Jews in Lodz. My guess is that 26this was an infinitesimally small part of their budget.

. P-82

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
If they had just the three trucks and this length of 2time to do it in, and they had the problem of persuading 3the people to get into the truck, and loading them up, 4driving off, waiting for the gas to have its effect, then 5unloading them at the other end and cleaning up the mess 6so that the next cargo did not have any suspicions, there 7must have been quite a substantial turn around time? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The trucks made return trips each day. In fact, we know 9with just one truck at the Semlin camp, it took about two 10months, with just one trip a day and occasionally two, to 11gas the 7,000 people there. So, with three trucks 12operating on a shorter run, they did not have to drive all 13the way through Belgrade to the far side, which is what 14happened in Semlin. I did the calculations for Semlin. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
You have done the calculations? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. I have not done them for this. 17Q.
[Mr Irving]
Does the 97,000 not strike you as being wrong by a factor 18of two or three? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Absolutely not. It does not strike me as wrong at all. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
It depends strictly on what the capacity of the trucks 21would have been, what the turn around time was, whether 22they were really efficient, whether they worked 24 hours a 23day and whether the trucks had any down time. 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
From the witness reports the trucks made numerous trips 25each day, the drivers traded off so that they in fact 26operated continually during the day.

. P-83

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
Around the clock 24 hours a day? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Not 24 hours, through the day. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. 4MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is pretty distasteful, but may I ask this 5question? How many people were there in a gas van when 6they were being gassed? How many people could be 7accommodated? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We do not know for Chelmno because it is a different 9truck. There is a Saurer truck, one Saurer truck was at 10Chelmno. That is the one that exploded. Then they had 11two converted Renault French military trucks that they 12turned into gas vans, so we do not have a knowledge 13there. The small truck that they produced, the Opal 14Blitz, was the smallest. The Saurer could carry 50 to 80 15people, the Opal Blitz was 30 to 50. So, even if the 16Renault was smaller than the Opal, which probably as a 17military truck it was larger, would be in between the two. 18Q.
[Mr Justice Gray]
That is the order of magnitude? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 20MR IRVING: Were there more than three of these ominous trucks 21of death going around the Eastern Front do you think? Did 22they go from location to location? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Some of them were distributed to each of the 24Einsatzgruppen so there were some operating in Riga, some 25in Minsk and south, so that they were a few. We know, for 26instance, that Minsk, I do not have the document, but

. P-84

1I think they had 3 or 4 trucks and they asked for more. 2So we know that they had small fleets of these trucks with 3different Einsatzgruppen. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
Was this the principal means of killing at that time? 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. It was a very minor part of the Einsatzgruppen. The 6vast bulk of the killing in the East was by shooting. The 7gas vans attached to the Einsatzgruppen were a very minor 8part of their killing operations. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
Can you draw any conclusions from the fact that they used 10different methods of killing people, a lack of system? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think we can find a kind of chronological sequence. 12They start with shooting. The next thing implemented is 13the gas vans starting at Chelmno and Semlin. Then they 14move to the fairly primitive gas chambers, which is the 15gas chambers that Operation Reinhardt and the converted 16peasant bunkers at Auschwitz. Then they move to the 17design construction. Once they have experience one can go 18back and say, how would you do this if you were creating 19something modern? So I do not find anything haphazard and 20confusing. I find it quite a logical sequence in which 21they add new methods of killing at the same time as the 22old methods continue. 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
Would you not agree that the lack of preparedness at the 24time Barbarossa began on June 22nd 1941 is in itself an 25indication that they did not go into Russia with the 26intention of carrying out systematic liquidations on a

. P-85

1large scale? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That has been my argument. We get evidence of 3preparations at the death camps coming in the fall of 41, 4which is when I have argued, partly because of that, that 5one then concludes that they have now reached the point 6where they want a systematic killing of the Jews of 7Europe. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. My Lord, I wanted to take this witness briefly on to 9the table talk document which your Lordship may remember, 10October 25th 1941. 11MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sure I will when you tell me what it 12is. Is that the Himmler Hitler meeting? 13MR IRVING: It is the ugly rumours one, good thing that the 14rumour goes ahead of us. 15MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us dig it out. 16MR IRVING: I put in my clip, my Lord, of documents I gave to 17you. 18MR JUSTICE GRAY: If it is somewhere else perhaps we will go to 19where it is already. 20MR RAMPTON: It is in part 1 of Longerich. 21MR JUSTICE GRAY: I was wondering about the actual document. 22MR IRVING: We will find it most neatly on page 25 of the clip 23I gave you, my Lord, in the actual original Martin Bormann 24version. 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The problem is that I do not have the document. 26MR IRVING: It is the clip that I gave you this morning,

. P-86

1Professor. 2MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 25. 3MR RAMPTON: Page 59 of Longerich 1, paragraph 16.4. It is 4translated and the relevant part of the German is given at 5the footnote 149. 6MR IRVING: Professor, do you have the document in front of 7you? 8MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just pause a moment, Mr Irving. 9MR IRVING: Page 25. 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 11MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 12MR IRVING: Professor, in your absence, before you arrived in 13the United Kingdom, I was taking stick for having wrongly 14translated two or three words in the second paragraph of 15that document. 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 17Q.
[Mr Irving]
The translation which I relied upon was the Weidenfeld 18edition of Hitler's table talk. 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
I will read out most of the paragraph. They are talking 21about the Jews. They are going to have to disappear from 22Europe. The Weidenfeld translation continues: "That race 23of criminals has on its conscience the 2 million dead of 24the First World War -- this is Adolf Hitler allegedly 25speaking -- and now already hundreds of thousands more. 26Let nobody tell me that all the same we cannot park them

. P-87

1in the marshy parts of Russia. Who is worrying about our 2troops? It is not a bad idea by the way that public 3rumour attributes to us a plan to exterminate the Jews." 4 I will stop there. That is the translation of 5the phrase "Es ist gut, wenn uns der Schrecken 6vorangeht". 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
I would ask you how would you translate the phrase, "it is 9good if wenn uns der Schrecken vorangeht"? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It is good if the terror precedes us that we are 11exterminating the Jews. 12Q.
[Mr Irving]
The terror? 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The Schrecken, the fear of the terror. I certainly would 14not have translated it as "rumours". 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
You would not translate it as "public rumours"? So they 16have it wrong and I was wrong, criminally wrong, 17perversely wrong to have adopted the Weidenfeld---- 18MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is for me, not for the witness. 19MR IRVING: Professor, are you familiar with a historian by the 20name of Philip Burrin? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Philip Burrin, yes. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. Is he a notable historian? He is not an extremist 23in some way, is he? Is he a dependable historian? His 24works are published? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He is an historian of accepted reputation. 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you familiar with a book that this historian wrote

. P-88

1called "Hitler and the Jews, the genesis of the 2Holocaust". 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
Please turn to page 17 of your bundle of documents that 5I gave you and look at page 145? Would you say that in 6the second half of that paragraph this historian has done 7his own translation of the original German? Perhaps 8I ought to draw your attention, first of all, to the end 9note 47, which you will find on page 18 of my bundle. 10MR JUSTICE GRAY: How do you know he did his own translation? 11MR IRVING: That is what I am just referring to. 12MR JUSTICE GRAY: How does that prove that?. 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He wrote the book in French and someone else translated 14it. Burrin's original book is in French. He is a French 15speaking Swiss historian. 16MR IRVING: He has not used the Weidenfeld translation from 17what you can see. 18MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is obvious. 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He has not listed his monologe. 20MR IRVING: Is that the title of the German edition of the 21book, Hitler's table talk, Monologe im Fuhrer... 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, but what it looks to me is that his translator got 23lazy and, instead of translating Monologe, in fact grabbed 24the Weidenfeld and borrowed an English translation from an 25earlier edition and goofed it entirely. Burrin has been 26betrayed by his translator. That is how I would look at

. P-89

1this. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
Will you take it from me that this Weidenfeld edition, sad 3to say, only went through one edition and there were no 4other editions than this? If he had had this edition 5before him, he would have used use phrase "public 6rumour". 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I am in possession of a paper back that presumably was 8sold in great quantities that has exactly the Weidenfeld 9translation, so it is not a scarce book to get. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
They did not change this wording then? They did not use 11the word ominous reputation, which is the wording that has 12been used by Philip Burrin? 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I am afraid I am not following you right now. 14MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think this is such an open question that it 15is not going to get you anywhere really. There is no 16point in my not saying that. I see the point you are 17driving at but it is too speculative. 18MR IRVING: My point, my Lord, is quite clearly that, if this 19historian uses the phrase "ominous reputation", which is 20arguably very close to the translation which is adopted 21both by myself and Weidenfeld translation, then it would 22be perverse to call me perverse for having adopted a 23perverse ---- 24MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. I think the criticism is more focused 25really, that you saw the German text, saw the word 26"Schrecken", but were nevertheless content to use the

. P-90

1word "rumour" because it was in Weidenfeld when 2"Schrecken" does not mean "rumour". That I think is the 3point. 4MR IRVING: So, my Lord, does this translator. 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I follow that. In a sense, this is 6beside the point. 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
One have would it to ---- 8MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is my feeling. I have the point you 9seek to make. I have told you what I think about it. 10MR IRVING: The point I am seeking to make is that he is not a 11Holocaust denier. He is not perverse. Others also use a 12milder version of it than the outright terror, which is 13possible translation of "Schrecken" but not the only one. 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
One way to deal with it is to get the Burrin original and 15see what he says in French, because this is what would 16reflect what he was thinking, and then we could decide 17whether Burrin, as a historian or a historically ignorant 18translator, using a different version to save himself the 19time from a responsible translation, is at fault here. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
While you have the bundle in front of you, we can now 21dispose of the bundle in a few minutes, page 32 of the 22bundle, my Lord, I am just using this witness in order to 23introduce a document. 24MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are doing it in exactly an appropriate 25way, as I say. 26MR IRVING: Page 32 and page 33: Are you familiar with the

. P-91

1Harvard University? Of course you are. 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you familiar with the fact that their library at 4Harvard University is called the Weidener library? 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 6Q.
[Mr Irving]
Does this appear to be a list of books which the library 7has in its card file by an author called David Irving? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
And do there appear to be 47 books by that author in the 10Harvard University library? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
47 entries. Some of them are duplicate. 12Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. In other words, 47 copies of my books are in Harvard 13University Library? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is that a commendable total, would you say? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It is a large number. 17Q.
[Mr Irving]
How many books by Professor Browning are there in the 18Harvard University Library? Have you any estimate? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not know if they have any of mine! 20MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, joking apart, what I get out of 21this is that you are thought by Harvard University or the 22Wagner Library to be the sort of author of whose many 23books they have a large number in stock. I think that is 24a fair point for you to make. 25MR IRVING: Taken in conjunction with one of the earlier 26paragraphs of Professor Evans' expert report, my Lord --

. P-92

1I am sure your Lordship will remember it -- Professor 2Evans went to the British Library and found that my book 3"Hitler's War" was kept on the pornographic and 4restricted list. Apparently, it is not the case in 5respected institutions in the United States. 6MR JUSTICE GRAY: If Professor Evans makes points like that, 7you are entitled to make this sort of point in reply. 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I would just add that Harvard University tries to have a 9complete list so they will buy everything. It does not 10reflect an endorsement of the authors by virtue of the 11fact they have them available in the library. 12MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, of course. 13MR IRVING: Would you turn to page 34 of that bundle? These 14are just odds and ends and this is the appropriate way to 15use them, I think. It is the last page. My Lord, this is 16the German original and also I have translated it into 17English for your Lordship. 18MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is very helpful. Thank you. 19MR IRVING: It is German police decodes. It is Traffic of 20November 13th 1941, is that correct? Intercepted and 21decoded a month later roughly. There are two radio 22messages here, is that correct? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Item 10 and item 32, yes. 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
Item 10 and 32. Would you agree that item 10 appears to 25be a radio message sent from the SS Chief Medical Officer 26in Riga to the firm of Tesch and Stabenow in Hamburg?

. P-93

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not see the Riga. I see radio message of the SS at 2Hamburg. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
The last line says: "Signed, Senior Medical Officer"? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I was looking at the top. 5Q.
[Mr Irving]
Would you agree this is from the Senior Medical Officer 6attached to the Chief SS Officer in Riga and it is going 7to the firm of Tesch and Stabenow in Hamburg? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Via the Hamburg SS, yes. 9MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, sorry, can I just ask you this? 10It is called a decode. Is this is an intercept? 11MR IRVING: This is a British intercept. 12MR JUSTICE GRAY: A Bletchley intercept? 13MR IRVING: From Bletchley Park. One of this myriad of 14hundreds of thousands of messages, but it is typical of 15the kind of information that is there waiting to be fished 16out of the Public Record Office. Would you agree that 17this shows a request for information on which Zyklon was 18dispatched for the use of a man called Dr Tesch? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
Do you know who Tesch and Stabenow were? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
They are people involved -- no, I do not know for sure. I 22will not say. I mean, I have heard their names. 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is it right to say that they are the firm in Hamburg which 24had the monopoly of supplies of Zyklon and other 25fumigation agents east of the River Elb? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I remember the names in connection with the production of

. P-94

1Zyklon-B. I could not testify that they were in Hamburg 2or had a monopoly. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
And that this message is referring to dispatch, not only 4of Zyklon, but also substances referred to as Tegas, 5Athylo, Trito? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
They are referring to three other products. Whether they 7are gas or not, we do not know. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
Well, we do. 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not know. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
Would you accept they are other fumigation products? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I will accept that they are referring to three products. 12I do not see anything that says what their purpose is. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes, and the message also shows that Dr Tesch who is doing 14something in Riga connected with training? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Obviously, they did not get the complete message, but they 16do have the word "training" in Riga, at least as part of a 17garbled part of the intercept. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
So that the inference to be drawn from that telegram is 19that people were being trained in the use of fumigation 20agents, both lethal and non-lethal? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Since I do not know what Tegas, Athylo.D and Trito are, 22I can only say that there are three products in addition 23to Zyklon being dispatched. 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
Will you accept that Tegas is a substance which is nine 25parts of ethylene oxide to one part of carbon dioxide? It 26is one of the proprietary fumigation agents that the

. P-95

1German Army used? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, I have no ground to accept or dispute. If you want 3to present that to the court or whatever, I cannot comment 4on that because I simply do not know. 5Q.
[Mr Irving]
And the other items were, in fact, proprietary fumigation 6agents? 7MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor Browning, does this decode tell you 8anything about whether it was a lethal or a non-lethal use 9of these gases, assuming they were gasses or fumigation 10agents? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
They say nothing to that regard and I do not know of any 12lethal gassings in Riga, except for the gas vans which 13gassed with carbon monoxide. 14MR IRVING: I just need one further piece of evidence. Have 15you read the Tesch trial at all, the trial of Dr Bruno 16Tesch by the British? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
You have not read that? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
But the word "training" indicates the people were being 21trained in the use of fumigation agents or could be both? 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
They were engaged in the training of something. 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. I am going to go through the remaining pages of your 24report. We have started at I think round about page 24. 25MR JUSTICE GRAY: Before you go further, Mr Irving, shall we 26just decide what should be the home for this? I will be

. P-96

1guided by the Defendants, Mr Rampton. 2MR RAMPTON: I am so sorry. 3MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do you have any suggestions about where this 4clip should go? 5MR RAMPTON: My Lord ---- 6MR IRVING: L, I think. 7MR RAMPTON: --- what we will do, if your Lordship will just 8put it all at the back of L for the moment, we will take 9out the ones which are chronological. 10MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Thank you very much. 11MR IRVING: My Lord, so you have an overview, I have now 12finished the general part and what may seem to your 13Lordship rather vague and eccentric (as the opposite of 14concentric) questioning. We are now focusing just on the 15report. I think I will be finishing this half way through 16the afternoon. 17MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do not hurry at all. My problem was simply 18you were assuming too much knowledge on my part. 19MR IRVING: I was hoping to hit a few nails in while this 20witness was here. 21MR JUSTICE GRAY: Of course. You are perfectly entitled to do 22that. 23MR IRVING: And we will do the same with Professor Longrich 24when he comes. (To the witness): Paragraph 4.4.1, which 25is on page 24 of your report, Professor? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes.

. P-97

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
Once again, simply stated, I do not deny that these 2shootings occurred and these killings occurred. All I am 3looking at here are two specific matters. First of all, 4the scale, and, secondly, the quality of the evidence that 5is available to us. That is what these questions are all 6going to. You say: "The commanders in the field were 7explicitly told to report extensively" -- this is your 8middle sentence -- "as both Hitler and Himmler were to be 9kept well informed." 10 Now, did you have a specific reason for 11including Hitler in that sentence, or what I am asking for 12is what is the proof that Hitler had asked to be kept well 13informed? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The document that we cited of August 1st 1941, I do not 15say Hitler asked, I said the document there said Hitler 16was to receive, you know, a regular supply of reports, the 17current reports. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
But this paragraph refers only to the systematic mass 19murder, does it not? It does not refer to the 20Einsatzgruppen's other operations? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
If you want to know the work of the Einsatzgruppen and one 22major piece of the work of the Einsatzgruppen was the 23killings. 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
But I do not want to repeat the discussion we had about 25that document yesterday, but we concluded that the 26document was looking for visual materials?

. P-98

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
To supplement, it was following on the already existing 2policy of handing on these reports and they wanted to 3fatten them. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
I guess what I am asking really is that the only document 5you rely on when you say that both Hitler and Himmler were 6to be kept informed? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That is the one for Hitler, I am not ---- 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
I am not interested in Himmler. We have accepted that 9Himmler needed to be kept informed. 10MR JUSTICE GRAY: So solely based on the 1st August 1941? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That is the documentary evidence we have, yes. 12MR IRVING: Thank you. 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
In terms of a wider thing, of course, Heydrich then 14summarized these, and that we have the monthly summaries 15that are spread out and copied as many as 100 for report, 16that are distributed to various Ministries, and the 17Foreign Office report will be seen by 30 or 40 people. So 18there does seem to be a great eagerness to get the word 19out. This is not something within the government that 20these reports are terribly shielded. 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
You are familiar with Hitler's order on secrecy, are you 22not, of January 1940, the need-to-know order, that Hitler 23issued the order saying that only those were to be told of 24secret operations or events ---- 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have seen reference to it. I do not believe I have read 26it myself, but I have seen reference to it.

. P-99

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
So that would have tended to keep information 2compartmentalized, would it not? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
These always listed who was to receive, so there was -- it 4was not circulated on the street corner. They had a list 5of who was authorized to receive it. 6Q.
[Mr Irving]
But you say now in paragraph 4.4.2, the next paragraph: 7"Such a thorough documentation does not exist concerning 8the fate of the Jews from the rest of Europe". In other 9words, we are reliant on postwar materials, eyewitness 10accounts, inferences, are we? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We are reliant on that systematic documentation in the 12sense we do not have a complete run of reports like we 13have of Einsatzgruppen. We have some documents that have 14survive here, some there. We are reliant on less complete 15documentation, though some pockets of documentation that 16are very suggestive and, in addition, postwar testimony as 17well. Documentation, for instance, concerning the 18deportation operations is fairly rich in some countries. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
But you are referring to the railroad information? 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, I say "concerning the fate of the Jews from the rest 21of Europe", we have a mixed bag of documentation, rather 22than a fairly rich and steady run. I mean, Einsatzgruppen 23reports, to have a complete series, it is fairly rare for 24an historian. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
I appreciate that. 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We do not have that rich ----

. P-100

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
But if you take one specific matter, for example, the 2deportation of the Jews from France, is it right to say 3that there is a broad measure of disagreement on what the 4total number involved was, ranging from 25,000 at one end 5of the scale (which I think Pierre Vidal Nacette supports) 6right up to the high 200,000s? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Of how many in France or how many deported? 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
How many Jews were deported from France? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think most historians accept the figure of around 1075,000. I have not been aware of a huge difference 11because we have references to most of the trains and when 12they left, and we can add up the trains. So I did not, 13I do not think -- it is not my -- I am not aware that 14there is a vast discrepancy of interpretation concerning 15the number of Jews deported from France. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
Why would Himmler have discussed with Hitler the 17deportation of 200,000 or 300,000 Jews from France when 18that figure was not in France at that time? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
In mainland France there is roughly about 300,000 Jews. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The number in North Africa, I have no idea, but it is ---- 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
This is a discussion on 10th December 1942. Do you 23remember what happened one month before that? 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, the Germans were pouring troops into Tunisia. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
And we had seized control of most of French North West 26Africa, had we not, so that the Germans could not have

. P-101

1done anything with the Jews in that part of the world, so 2those figures could not have been included, could they? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Not in the 2 or 300,000, but if you are working -- the 4question is why -- let me back up so we do not get totally 5lost. There is a figure in the Wannsee conference 6protocol that has mystified historians because it is 7listed I think 600,000. It is a number well beyond what 8any historian believes of Jews in France. Puzzling, some 9people have speculated, purely speculated, that this may 10include the Jews of French North Africa too. 11Q.
[Mr Irving]
But on December 10th 1942 that can no longer have 12pertained? 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, but we do not get that figure. We get the 2 to 14300,000 that is ---- 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
Still wrong? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. That is still approximately right. If you started 17with 300,000 and 40,000 were deported in 1942, you would 18be at 260,000. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
But there were not two or 300,000 Jews in mainland France 20on December 10th 1942, were there? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Oh, there were. 300,000 is the figure that I have seen 22for the population in all of France and, of course, 23Germany occupies the southern part of France and thus 24would have the Jews of all of France in December 1942. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
Where have you seen these figures? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This would come from Michael Merris and Paxton's book on

. P-102

1the Vichy France and the Jews. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
Would you turn to page 25 please? I am looking at 3paragraph 5.1.1 which I suppose is your topic paragraph. 4You are setting out what you are going to be saying. You 5say, the final sentence in that paragraph, you are 6referring to the fact that there are disagreements over 7historical interpretation? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Absolutely. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
They are not at all unusual, you say? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We have seen several of these, the questions of 11interpretation from circumstantial evidence about what 12date decisions were made ---- 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
You do not have to have a Professor's title to be entitled 14to have a different opinion, do you, or to be Lord 15somebody or Sir John somebody, do you? You are entitled 16to have a different opinion? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
There is a range of opinion and one does not have to have 18a PhD to hold an opinion. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. You do not have to be rocket scientist, as they say 20now. You say: "On the contrary, it is quite a normal 21occurrence" to have different opinions about how the 22programme for murder of the Jews came about? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
You finish that paragraph by saying: "What follows is my 25interpretation concerning the emergence" of what you call 26"the Final Solution" by which you are referring to the

. P-103

1murder of the Jews, are you not? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Correct. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
"It is not shared in every aspect by other able and 4learned historians of the Holocaust". 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Correct. 6Q.
[Mr Irving]
But it would be wrong to call them Holocaust deniers, 7would it not, just because they disagree with the 8established view? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
As I have said, there is a large body of interpretation on 10a number of issues, including the issue of whether Hitler 11gave an order or not, that is within the historical 12debate. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
What is permissible, in your view, and his Lordship may 14interrupt this discussion, to debate and what is 15impermissible to debate? Where is the line drawn? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Where we draw the line? I would say ---- 17MR JUSTICE GRAY: In relation to these death camps, do you 18mean, or more generally? 19MR IRVING: The Final Solution -- the mass murder of the Jews. 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I would say if interpretations are based upon evidence 21such as you invented yesterday when you added the lines to 22the Himmler notation, and that becomes the basis of an 23interpretation, that would be one that we could say, "This 24is flawed". 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
Over the line? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
"This is over the line".

. P-104

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes, we are talking about December 18th 1941 note? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
We put things in square brackets saying, if you remember, 4Jewish problem to be treated as partisans or to be wiped 5out as partisans ---- 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
And when you added "that they were" ---- 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes, in square brackets? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
--- I said that was invention, and if one is using 9invented evidence, this would be one example of where we 10would say, "This person is no longer taking part in the 11debate. He is fantasizing evidence". 12Q.
[Mr Irving]
That is a very good example. Suppose the person who did 13the inventing put the invented words in square brackets, 14which is the accepted connotation for his assistance to 15the reader, and if he also then gave the German original, 16if there was any doubt, would that be over the line or 17within the line? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I would have to see the particular case to get a sense of 19whether it was clearly intending to help the reader or to 20mislead the reader. I mean, this would be a border line 21case and one would have to look at the individual 22circumstances. 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
So the criterion then is if something has been changed or 24included with the intention of misleading, then that would 25be over the line? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Certainly when the intention is clear, then we are -- it

. P-105

1is easier to decide. I, myself, would feel that if one 2has a pattern of distortion, even if it is not intended, 3but is so much of the personality of the person that they 4are so identified with this that they no longer in a sense 5can see the evidence except by kind of default position, 6one gets a consistent pattern of distortion even if it is 7not a calculated and wilful distortion. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
This is a very useful concept. In other words, if an 9historian is so imbued with the notion that, "Surely, 10Adolf Hitler gave the order and, even we cannot find it, 11it must be there somewhere and I am going to disregard any 12evidence to the contrary", that would fit within that 13concept, would it, or are you only looking at the people 14on the other side of the mirror when you say that? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think it is a general rule and the is, as you have 16brought it up, obviously, one can reverse these things, 17and if every piece of evidence one gets, the first thing 18is, "Does this implicate Hitler? Is there Hitler in it? 19Well, it does not implicate Hitler, we can deal were this 20document; but if Hitler is in there, then we have to do 21something with it". 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
Suppose there was a document which suggested that Hitler 23had repeated the order that he wanted the Final Solution 24postponed until the war was over and all the historians 25ignored that, would they be being perverse or would they 26be entitled to act like that?

. P-106

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
In the circumstances, which I am sure we will discuss in 2detail, I will explain why, I do not think it would be 3perverse not to discuss that document. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
We do not discuss the document today. I just wanted to 5know would it be right to ignore it and pretend it did not 6exist or would that be perverse? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not think one is obligated to footnote all the 8documents they do not use. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. In other words ---- 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
And that they have made a judgment they do not find 11helpful. 12Q.
[Mr Irving]
You put it under the carpet and you do not even put a 13footnote about it, and that is OK, is it? That is what 14you are saying? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Again, it would depend very much on the circumstances. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
So I am trying to help you here because the picture you 17are giving is that a person is considered to be a 18respectable historian provided he has views that are 19respectable, if I can put it like that, but as soon as he 20starts having disrespectable views, then -- if he has 21politically incorrect views, then this makes him 22disreputable and beyond the pail? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It not said that at all. 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
But there are certain views which one has no problem with 25at all? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
There is a range of views which involve a looking at the

. P-107

1evidence that historians seeing that evidence would say, 2"This is within a range of interpretation". The example 3I then gave was that if one invents further evidence, this 4is not within the realm of acceptance as one example of 5where I would say we could say one has gone over the line. 6Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes, but putting something in square brackets to assist 7the reader is not inventing evidence, is it? If you are 8adding an interpretation for the reader and helping the 9reader to see that -- would that be ---- 10MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving ---- 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think that could be called misleading. 12MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- I think that for two reasons we have had 13enough of this. (A) it is my province, and (B) I think 14the questions are too broad. I think it all depends. 15MR IRVING: It is, my Lord, and I am going to ask the witness 16now to turn to 5.1.6 which is on pages 27 to 8. We have 17had this before already in another context, my Lord. In 18fact, it is not irrelevant to the previous matter. (To 19the witness): If one has a certain mind set, Professor, 20is it correct that one might read a document the wrong 21way? 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That is possible. 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
I think we are going to come to one example of this 24straightaway. You say at the foot of page 27: 25"Rademacher reported: 'Then as soon as the technical 26possibility exists within the framework of the total

. P-108

1solution to the Jewish question, the Jews will be deported 2by waterway to the reception camp in the east." 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
Now, the fact that they were going to go to a reception 5camp implies to your mind that they were going to go to a 6sticky end, to some kind of sinister place where nasty 7things were going to be done to them? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
What I used this for was to show that a reception camp, 9and we will come to my mistake in terms of the plural and 10the singular, I am sure, immediately. As I said 11yesterday, yes, I did make mistakes. 12Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is that an example of the kind of mistake one might make 13if one had a mind set where you were expecting that we are 14talking about one of the Operation Reinhardt camps, one of 15the camps, that they are going to be sent there and they 16are going to be bumped off; but when we read that the 17actual document says they are going to be sent to 18reception camps, all the sinisterness goes out of this 19particular document? 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
On the contrary, I think my interpretation was against 21interest, that I have looked and what, as an historian, 22I have been concerned with is evidence in the fall of 1941 23of this, as say, a vision between Himmler, Hitler, 24Heydrich and others, that they have now decided on the 25murder of Jews. For my purposes, in terms of what I would 26have been predisposed to find, would indeed to have found

. P-109

1evidence of a much broader thing and to have interpreted 2it correctly. To have it in the singular was against 3interest; an error on my part, but certainly not one that 4would be one that I would have made willingly or would 5have been disposed to make because of opinions I held that 6this is a case, in fact, where I made an error that 7limited the importance of the document I had, and the 8correct translation, I think, is very useful to me because 9it goes towards something that I have been working to 10collect evidence on, hoping to bolster an argument. So in 11that case, I would say this is not a reflection of a 12predisposed mine set to read the document wrongly. I read 13it wrongly despite a prior interpretation that I had 14published. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
So you do not think that this very minor translation error 16has in any way damaged the burden of the argument you are 17making? 18MR JUSTICE GRAY: I cannot see that it makes a blind bit of 19difference myself. 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think it limits it. If my argument has been that after, 21that the second Hitler decision came in early October and 22that after that there is an awareness among the Germans 23they are going to build a series of camps, to put this in 24the singular instead of the plural, that Eichmann's 25assistant saw travelling with Rademacher is speaking about 26the creation of, I put it there, within "the technical

. P-110

1possibility of a framework for a total solution" is 2talking about a series of camps, this is a much stronger 3document than the way I have interpreted it. 4MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, it depends if it is one big camp or a 5lot of little camps. 6MR IRVING: Except that one big camp might have been Belzec or 7Sobibor or Treblinka, whereas a lot of little camps could 8not have been, my Lord. It would have been the "new 9life", if I can put it like that? It would be the 10gettoes, the alternative solution that was being 11propagated. I fully accept that it was an accidental 12mistranslation on the witness's part. But the other point 13I was going to make is do such accidents happen and are 14they necessarily perverse in translation? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
If they happen, they should at least sort of be 50 per 16cent one way and 50 per cent another, and here the case we 17have found is one, as I say, against interest. If there 18was a consistent pattern where all mistakes tended to 19support the position of the man making the mistakes, one 20could make a case that (indeed, what we have talked about) 21a predisposed mind set was contributing. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
You mean it is like a waiter who always gives the wrong 23change in his own favour? 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
5.1.8, please, which is on page 28 -- I am just going to 26refer very briefly to Aberhard Wetzel. We have looked at

. P-111

1this document many times. I am not going to look at it 2again. What happened to Aberhard Wetzel, do you know? 3Was he prosecuted or punished in any way? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not know of a Wetzel trial, so I assume he was not, 5but I do not know that. 6Q.
[Mr Irving]
So this is yet another case of a man who, prima facie, on 7the basis of the documents on which you rely was 8committing crimes of great enormity or encouraging them or 9inspiring them, and yet nothing happened to him. 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, the problem is, of course, that it is a letter in 11which they propose something. It was never done. 12Therefore, the document does not -- the only documentary 13evidence was to a crime that was not committed because, in 14fact, this plan was not carried out and, therefore, they 15had no crime with which to charge Mr Wetzel. Knowledge of 16the killing does not constitute in German law a felony. 17It is contributing to the killing and in this case there 18was no gas van killing in Riga resulting from this action 19by Wetzel, so there was no crime to charge him with. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
Now page 29 please, paragraph 5.1.9, you summarize: "In 21short, surviving documents show that by late October 1941 22the Nazi regime" had done a number things. But does not 23the previous paragraph, 5.1.8, suggest that it is actual 24individuals who are doing it and that frequently their 25proposals were not being taken up? What do you mean by 26the "Nazi regime"? Are you talking about Himmler, from

. P-112

1Himmler downwards or from Hitler downwards? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, I am talking about a policy that is out there. 3I think Hitler is involved. I do not have a document to 4prove it, but given how I think the Himmler/Hitler 5relationship worked, and that in every case, numerous 6cases we can find that Himmler did not act without 7Hitler's permission, that I would say -- my conclusion 8circumstantially is that Hitler is part of that, but I do 9not have the document to collect my £1,000. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
You say in paragraph 5.1.10: "These documents suggest 11that a policy of systematic extermination", and so on, was 12going on, but is suggestion enough really? You have 13documents from which inferences can be drawn, and yet here 14we are, 55 years after the war is over, we are still 15looking for documents that only suggest things? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, this is, in terms of dating, suggests that by late 17October, and that others like Jerloch argue it is not 18until December, some like Dr Longerich will argue that 19this comes even later than that. The suggestion is not 20that there was or was not a killing programme. It is at 21what date it will take shape. 22MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that must be right, as a matter of 23the interpretation of what is in the report. I think, 24Mr Irving, it is probably a time to -- unless you have a 25short point you would like to deal with. 26MR IRVING: No. It is quite a long point, the next one, it is

. P-113

1going to go to page 31, yes. 2MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, we will do that at 2 o'clock. 3(Luncheon adjournment) 4(2.00 p.m.) 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Mr Irving? 6MR IRVING: Thank you, my Lord. Professor Browning, are you 7still under contract to Yad Vashem? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have contracted to write a book for them and that has 9not been completed. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
They paid you $35,000? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, they have paid me, I believe, 27,000. 12Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you aware of the fact that Yad Vashem also paid money 13to the second Defendant in this case? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not know. No, I am not aware. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. So you do not see any possible conflict of interest 16in giving expert evidence in this action on behalf of the 17Second Defendant? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
One, I did not know that and two, I do not see the 19connection if I had none. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
Have you seen the book published by the Second Defendant 21"Denying the Holocaust"? 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, I have. 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
Had you not seen that very early on in the book in her 24introduction and on the title pages, she thanks the Yad 25Vashem/Vidal Sassoon Institute? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not remember reading that. I may not have read the

. P-114

1credits. One often goes directly to the body. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. Yad Vashem is an institution of the State of Israel, 3is it not? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 5Q.
[Mr Irving]
So you are, in that respect, a paid agent I suppose of the 6State of Israel using the word "agent" in its purely legal 7sense? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
If that was the case, then since I had been at the 9Holocaust Museum, I would also have been an agent of the 10American Government, and since I have received 11scholarships in Germany, I would be an agent of the German 12government, so I must be a very duplicitous fellow to be 13able to follow these regimes. 14Q.
[Mr Irving]
There is lots of money, is there not, in connection with 15the Holocaust research scholarships? It has become a 16well-funded kind of enterprise, can I say, Holocaust 17research, history, publishing ---- 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
All in the past, I wish it had been much better funded. 19I did not find that I lived particularly well. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
$35,000 to write a book which you have not delivered seems 21relatively well remunerated to me? 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
They have got the manuscript for the first half and that 23is where I have been remunerated from. They have it as in 24France. 25MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is the book that, I have not quite got the 26name of it, but this organisation is going to publish

. P-115

1written by you connected with your evidence? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. I mean I was in the course of researching that book. 3I am using evidence here, but it is not directly related 4to this, no. 5MR IRVING: Will you tell his Lordship what the nature of the 6book is you are going to write for Yad Vashem which is the 7Holocaust memorial in Israel, is it not? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The book is an overview of Nazi/Jewish policy from 1935 to 91945. The first half of September 1939 to March 1942 is 10what is now in the hands of both the editorial board of 11Yad Vashem and the Cambridge University Press, and it is 12under completion of that manuscript that I was paid the 13money, according to the contract that we had signed. 14MR JUSTICE GRAY: So it covers the same general area as your 15evidence but is broader? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 17MR IRVING: If you were to write a book for Yad Vashem which 18suggested that you discovered that Adolf Hitler had not 19issued the order or that it was just a totally haphazard 20killing operation that had resulted from the Holocaust, 21would this book be welcomed by them, do you think? Would 22that enhance his prospects or diminish them? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
As I have said, a number of historians have already made 24the argument that Hitler did not give the order, and 25I have been with them at a conference at Yad Vashem. They 26had been invited to take part in the discussion there.

. P-116

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
Will it surprise to you hear ---- 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have been on what we would call the functional end in 3terms of Hitler not having, as I say, a blueprint from the 4beginning, and though that is different than many Israeli 5scholars' view, that does not cause them to view me as 6outside the pale. 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, I have not had anyone interfere with or attempt to 9interfere with how I write the book. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
The point I am trying to make is obviously quite clearly 11you do not feel that your evidence, expert evidence in 12this case, has been in any way tainted by the money you 13have received from the State of Israel or Yad Vashem? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. I have written a book from which obviously my 15scholarly reputation is going to be based, that would be 16far more important to me than whatever money may be given, 17and that certainly would not be a factor in what I was 18writing. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
Very well. If an historian writes a book, just a 20hypothetical historian writes a book, and then between 21that publication of that book and the publication of the 22next edition of that book he changes his mind in any 23respect, on whatever basis of evidence, and he makes 24deletions from the text of the original edition of his 25book, is this reprehensible necessarily? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Not necessarily. In my review of the second edition of

. P-117

1Raul Hilberg I noted where he had made changes. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
You are running ahead of my question. 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That represented his view of the change between 61 and 85. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
You have correctly anticipated my next question, 5Professor, which is you are familiar with Professor Raul 6Hilberg? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
Can you describe Raul Hilberg and his qualifications to 9the court, please? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I would say that Raul Hilberg is the major historian who 11has written the overview of what we call the machinery of 12destruction, bureaucratic ---- 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
Hold it one moment. You describe him as an historian. 14Did he actually study history at university? Did he get a 15degree in history? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. He sits in the Political Science Department, but in 17terms of political science he is an historical end of that 18field which in fact involves people who do many other 19things that do not have particularly historical dimension. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
So you do not have to have book learning as an historian 21in university to be regarded as an historian? 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
Walter Laqueur is an example, is he not? 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not know what Laqueur's Ph.D., is but Raul Hilberg's 25is political science. 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
And Winston Churchill is another historian of course and

. P-118

1he never history, and Edward Gibbon I believe he also 2never studied history, and we can keep on going through 3the list, am I right? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
--- and Heroditus, yes. 5Q.
[Mr Irving]
Raul Hilberg is, as you say, one of the world's leading 6Holocaust historians? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
In my view. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
He wrote a book called ---- 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The Destruction of the European Jews. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
The Destruction of the European Jews. What was his 11position on Hitler's responsibility in the first edition 12of his book? 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
In the first book he was mainly laying out what he called 14bureaucratic structures, but that he did have sentences 15that talked about two decisions, a two-decision theory, 16that Hitler made a decision in July of 1941 and then 17Hitler made the decision later, the first for Soviet 18Jewry, the second for the mass murder of the European Jews 19outside Soviet territory. He rephrased that to ---- 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
Hold it for a moment, you have very carefully chosen your 21word there. You said "decision". 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Two decisions I said. 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes, decisions. Is there a distinction in your mind 24between "orders" and "decisions"? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, I think so. I usually use the word "decisions". 26I do not usually use the word "order", because an order

. P-119

1implies a more formal, it is a formal transfer from 2position of authority requesting a certain action be taken 3in a more specific way. "Decision" I have used, and 4I would also say I use this in a broad way, a point at 5which it became crystallized in the mind of Hitler and 6Himmler and Heydrich, or at least Himmler and Heydrich 7knew now what Hitler expected of them had been conveyed 8what they were to do. I have said that in the senses at 9the end of this decision-making process, and I have always 10said that is an amorphous incremental process. I have 11argued against what I would call the "big bang" theory, 12there is a certain moment in time in which suddenly, 13voila, we will kill all the Jews. 14Q.
[Mr Irving]
So did Hilberg in the first edition of his book, The 15Destruction of European Jewry, refer to a Hitler order or 16a Hitler decision or both? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I cannot remember exactly. I would have to look at the 18text. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
What happened between the publication of that edition and 20the publication of the second edition? What did he do? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He took out specific references to a Hitler decision or 22order, I forget how he phrased it, and phrased it more 23generally. 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is it not right that he went the whole way through the 25book cutting out the word "Hitler order", and the notion 26that Hitler had issued and order?

. P-120

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
In so far as it refers to a specific order, yes. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
And you actually wrote an article on this subject called 3"The Revised Hilberg"? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 5Q.
[Mr Irving]
Which is no doubt well in your memory? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, it was written in mid-1980, so it is 15 years in the 7past. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
And your recollection of events 15 years ago is not all 9that good? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It is not bad, but if you want to tell me which word did 11I use I would like the like text. If you want the general 12gist of it I can give it to you. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
I am suggesting that if your recollection of something you 14did 15 years ago is not all that hot, then an eyewitness's 15recollection about something 30 years ago might be equally 16shaky? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I can remember writing the article and I can tell you the 18gist. I cannot tell you if I used a word or a different 19word. It depends on the magnitude of detail that you are 20talking about. 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
Just winding up that matter, there is nothing 22reprehensible whatsoever about Hilberg going all the way 23through his book taking out any reference to a Hitler 24order, which is quite a major element to the book 25obviously, because he had reflected. On second thoughts 26he had decided the evidence was not there, is that the

. P-121

1right way of putting it? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He had decided that the way he had phrased it in the first 3volume should be revised. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: Surely the key consideration is what 6persuaded him to change his mind. If there were good 7reasons, there good reasons, and if there were not there 8were not. 9MR IRVING: Witness, can you answer his Lordship's curiosity in 10this respect? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He does not explicitly address that question as to why the 12change. He rephrases it in such a way that he felt that 13was too specific. 14MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. What I am getting at is, that the ground 15for criticising him for changing his mind would depend on 16the quality of the evidence that convinced him to change 17his mind. If there were not good reasons for his change 18of mind, then he should not have changed his mind or the 19text, that is obvious, do you agree with it? 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 21MR IRVING: But of course it would be an entirely subjective 22decision by the author or historian concerned as to what 23evidence would meet his own personal criteria? 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, and I think in this case it was partly a semantic 25question. He felt the word "order" implied or had come to 26imply by the 1980s more than he was comfortable with in

. P-122

1specificity, and so he phrased it in a more general way 2because by this point of course the controversy between 3intentionalist and functionalist had broken out. In fact 4he withdrew himself from that controversy. He phrased 5things in a way that was not part of that debate. 6Q.
[Mr Irving]
Can I put to you just a few words of your testimony in a 7court action in Canada in about 1988, which obviously your 8recollection then was refresher, it was 12 years ago: 9 "I will go on, thank you, said Browning. There 10is a question of how we understand the word 'order' and 11this is a case where I think we have deepened 12understanding. Though we have tried to deal with the 13concept, what does it mean for there to be Hitler order, a 14so-called Fuhrer befehl. I have certainly looked into 15that question. I have myself", that is you, "proposed 16that we have to look at it in terms of a series of signals 17or incitements", and that appears to have been a favourite 18concept of yours, signals or incitements? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I believe ---- 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I did not mean to interrupt. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
Do you remember saying that in that particular legal 23action in Canada, in the Zundel case? 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I remember we discussed the question and that sounds very 25much like what I said. 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
Would you just explain to the court what you mean by this

. P-123

1phrase of signals and incitements from somebody like 2Hitler which would lead to a Holocaust? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I would say it is the same as we have been discussing this 4morning and yesterday. Hitler sets a level of 5expectation, in this case, for instance, that the war in 6the Soviet Union is to be not simply a conventional war 7but a war of destruction, an ideological war, and then 8people bring him proposals and he approves or does not 9approve. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
It all sounds frightfully vague, does it not, far short of 11an order with a heading signature Adolf Hitler that we 12have in some of the other Hitler crimes like euthanasia? 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. This in a sense is a very different kind of process, 14and I think the reason why Hilberg took that word out is 15because people would read that word and interpret it that 16there must be a specific piece of paper, and so he talked 17more about a general process in which intentions or 18desires are conveyed, but did not want to use the word 19"order". 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. Does your Lordship wish to explore that particular 21matter any further? 22MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, thank you very much. 23MR IRVING: I think it is quite useful that we should establish 24that somebody of the reputation of Hilberg became uneasy, 25that in his own conscience, would you agree, he felt that 26he could no longer accept, having suggested there was a

. P-124

1Hitler order in his first edition and he went through 2actually -- I think, would you agree this is more 3significant than not mentioning it in the first place, 4that he had put it in the first place and then took it 5out? This is a more significant step than just not 6mentioning that there was no Hitler order? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It does mean that this had become I think a word that had 8become more freighted than when he wrote the first 9edition, and that he felt now the connotation of the 10expectation or the interpretation of the word "order" 11would place him in an interpretation that he was not 12comfortable with. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
Have you visited any of the Nazi concentration camps or 14the sites that you are talking about? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, I have been to Poland and visited Chelmno, Treblinka, 16Sobibor, Belzec and I have been to Auschwitz, Birkenhau. 17Q.
[Mr Irving]
You have been to Auschwitz and Birkenhau? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
And to Semlin. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
Was this recently or some years ago? 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
In 1990 or 1991. 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
1990, 1991? 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
One of those. I forget which summer. 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
Did you visit the sites of the alleged gas chambers in 24Auschwitz one and Auschwitz two in Birkenhau? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I visited both of them, and so I did go into the 26crematorium building, the reconstruction in Auschwitz one.

. P-125

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
You called it a reconstruction? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
In other words, it is not the original building? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. It was a crematorium and then in 43 to 45, I am not 5an expert on this but I believe it was used for other 6purposes, and then it was reconstructed back to close to 7what it had been before. Then I visited in Birkenhau and 8walked around the grounds, including the four sites of 9crematoria 2 through 5. One could walk to bunker two, the 10site of bunker one that seems to be totally unknown now. 11Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. Did they make any attempt to tell you at the time 12you visited these two sites that the Auschwitz one site, 13the old camp, that what they were showing you was a 14reconstruction? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not know even remember. I went in and I knew what I 16was looking at and I do not even recall how it was signed 17or labelled. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
Were you aware of the fact that you were not being shown 19the real thing? 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I was aware that this was a reconstruction, yes. 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
Did you say you also went to Dachau concentration camp? 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have been to Dachau much earlier. I believe that would 23have been 1972, the fall of 1972. 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
Do they have gas chambers on display at Dachau 25concentration camp? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
There is a gas chambers on display in Dachau concentration

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1camp. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
Do you wish to express an opinion to the court as to 3whether that is a genuine gas chamber or not? 4MR JUSTICE GRAY: Whether he wishes to, is it going to help me 5really at all? I know that that there was at one time a 6belief that there had been gas chambers at Dachau. I know 7it is now accepted, I think on all sides, that there were 8never any. Do I any need any more than that? 9MR IRVING: If your Lordship will accept the proposition that 10the Allies and their Allies after World War II are capable 11of erecting fakes for whatever purpose, and that it is not 12perverse of me to have said that and it does not make me 13ipso facto a Holocaust denier, then I will move on to 14another matter on. 15MR RAMPTON: If the word "fake" were changed for 16"reconstruction" or "demonstration" or something like 17that there would be common ground. The word "fake" is 18inappropriate for the reconstruction at Auschwitz one. 19MR IRVING: I would happily give Mr Rampton a reconstructive 20$50 bill if me gives me ten fives in exchange. 21MR JUSTICE GRAY: You can have your wagers outside court. I do 22think we must move on. I do not think Dachau has anything 23to do with this case. I have explained my understanding 24of the position. 25MR IRVING: Are you familiar with the fact that at Nuremberg 26the British prosecutors stated that there had been

. P-127

1gassings at Dachau, Buchenwald and at Oranienburg? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, I am not familiar with that passage. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
But you have read the Nuremberg war crimes trials records? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have read some of them. I have not read the whole 42 5volumes, no. 6Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you aware of the fact that large numbers of 7eyewitnesses, and I think this is relevant, my Lord ---- 8MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 9MR IRVING: --- testified to the existence of homicidal gas 10chambers at Dachau? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not know how many did. 12Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you aware that any did? 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. 14MR JUSTICE GRAY: If you want to take that further you would 15have to put chapter and verse. 16MR IRVING: My Lord, I cannot put chapter and verse to him at 17this time. If the witness says he is not aware of these 18eyewitnesses' testimonies I cannot take it further, but 19I shall certainly do so again with successor witness. If 20your Lordship agrees that putting it that way is relevant. 21MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I think that is a rather different kind 22of question and I think it is legitimate. 23MR IRVING: Moving back to the integration of Adolf Eichmann, 24are you aware of the conditions under which he was 25interrogated when he arrived in Israel? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He was in prison.

. P-128

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
Was he in prison with the light permanently switched on? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have read that that was the case. My guess is, and this 3is purely speculation, the Israelis might have been very 4worried that he might commit suicide, so they wanted a 5constant watch on him. They did not want a dead witness 6on their hands. 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
That he was constantly in the company of a guard? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I presume he was under constant watch. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
Would you suspect that this might have some affect on his 10mental stability if he was deprived of sleep through these 11conditions? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have no idea how bright the light was. There are such 13things as night lights that would not disturb the sleep at 14all. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
Do you have any reason to believe that he was provided 16with a night light on these occasions? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have absolutely no idea what the wattage of the light in 18his cell was. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
Mr Leon Poliakov who is also an expert on the Holocaust, 20is that name familiar to you? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I am familiar with the name. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is he a trained historian with a university engagement? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not know what his academic background is. 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
I would now like to revert to the December 1941, the Hans 25Frank diary, the meeting which is familiar to this court 26now held on I think December 13th 1941 -- no, it is

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1December 16th. 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The speech is December 16th. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
The speech by Hans Frank is on December 16th? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 5Q.
[Mr Irving]
I am purely concerned with your treatment of this, 6Professor. You have gone in some detail over the content 7of that speech, and this is on page 31 of your expert 8report. 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
Paragraph 5.1.13. I will ask that you have in front of 11you ---- 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have the English text and the footnote I believe 13contains the original, yes. 14Q.
[Mr Irving]
Can we have footnote 88, the document that corresponds to 15it? I think it would be adequate if I ask the witness 16just to read the three lines in German and translate what 17he has omitted. 18MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I personally think it is a good idea to 19actually have the document. 20MR IRVING: The whole document. 21MR RAMPTON: Pages 68 to 75 of what I now know to be L17. 22MR JUSTICE GRAY: I missed the page number. 23MR RAMPTON: 68 it starts. 24MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much. 25MR IRVING: The passage which you have quoted, Professor, is on 26page 457 of the printed text.

. P-130

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
If you remember this is the passage where the translation 3is: "What is to happen to the Jews? Do you believe that 4they will be lodged in settlements in the Ostland in 5Berlin? We were told why all this trouble. We cannot use 6them in the Ostland or in the Reichskommissarat either, 7liquidate them yourselves. We must destroy the Jews 8wherever we encounter them and wherever it is possible in 9order to preserve the entire structure of the Reich", and 10there you cease to quote. You then paraphrase for two or 11three lines on page 32 of your report? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
Then you continue with the word: "Nonetheless, we will 14take some kind of action". If you will now go to page 458 15of the original text you will see what you have omitted. 16It is seven lines down. Do you agree that you have 17omitted from the front of that quotation beginning with 18the word "nonetheless" ---- 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I am afraid I have still not located it. 20MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have the German text. I have not got the 21English. 22MR IRVING: Line 2 of page 32 is what I am looking at on the 23expert report, my Lord. 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have not found it yet. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
It is line 2 of the expert report on page 32 and it is 26line 7 of the original Hans Frank conference.

. P-131

1MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I have the line 2. It is the line 7. 2MR IRVING: Page 458. 3MR RAMPTON: One should start from the first complete 4paragraph. 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Is Judensendt the paragraph you want us to get to? 6MR IRVING: That is correct. 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
OK. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
His Lordship has not found it yet. Footnote 88 and it is 9page 488 of the printed text. 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 11Q.
[Mr Irving]
Would you translate, please, those first five or six 12lines, the first four lines of that paragraph: "The Jews 13are exceptionally damaging eaters for us", right? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
"In the general government we have got an estimated 2.5 16million, with the Jewish next of kin and all the rest that 17depends on them, now 3.5 million Jews", is that correct? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Correct. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
Then a significant sentence follows: "We cannot shoot 20these 3.5 million Jews. We cannot poison them". Then you 21continue with the passage about: "Nonetheless, we will 22take some kind of action"? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
I do not want to get into the content of this particular 25paragraph. I just want to ask for your motivation for 26leaving out that opening sentence, unless his Lordship

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1feels it is irrelevant? 2MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not feel it is irrelevant at all. No. 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, I do not know that it was a specific motivation. 4I do not see why one concluded or not concluded. What 5I did is, he rejects certain kinds of or when he says, "We 6cannot do this or cannot do that", I simply summarized 7that as ---- 8MR IRVING: He effectively says: "We cannot shoot them. We 9cannot poison them." 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 11Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is he suggesting we should strangle them? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
What he is suggesting is he does not know how they are 13going to do it. 14Q.
[Mr Irving]
Would you not agree that if another historian had omitted 15sentences like that at the beginning of a paragraph, 16without any even any indication of an omission, he would 17be held up to opprobrium and obloquy? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I mean by putting precedents, you know, switching out of 19direct quotes I do not think I indicated that there was 20nothing that I was continuing directly on. 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
Unless of course the part that was being omitted 22substantially altered the sense of the gist that you were 23trying to convey? 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not think it substantially alters the gist. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
If the man who is speaking says "We cannot kill them" ---- 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, he does not say we cannot kill them. He says, "We

. P-133

1cannot shoot them or we cannot poison them". 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
Which is another way of saying, in my submission, that we 3cannot kill them? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, I do not accept that. 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: Apart from gas what are the alternatives? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, the alternatives are that one can starve them. One 7can keep them in conditions where they will perish. Of 8course Frank does not know yet, I think, that in fact they 9were working on ways to poison them. This would indicate 10Frank has not yet been initiated into the fact that indeed 11they will be poisoning them. What he does say, and what 12I think is important, is the fact that he is told there is 13going to be a big meeting to sort this out, and when they 14go, when Buhle then is sent to the Wannsee conference he 15is going to get some answers to this. 16MR IRVING: But did they discuss methods of killing at the 17Wannsee conference? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
According to Eichmann it is not literally in the 19protocol. They use the euphemism we talked about, 20solutional possibilities or possible solutions when 21Eichmann was asked ---- 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
Which could mean anything, could it not? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
When Eichmann was asked what did that mean, he said it was 24ways of killing or something to that effect. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
When Eichmann was asked in Israel during these 26interrogations we were talking about a few minutes ago,

. P-134

1right? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
And he agreed it could have meant killing? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. He did not agree that it could have meant. He said 5that is what it did mean. When he did not want to agree 6to such things such as Auschwitz, he denied it vigorously, 7which would indicate that he could say no when he wanted 8to. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
We are now on to the Wannsee conference which is quite 10useful, Professor. 11MR JUSTICE GRAY: Before we do can I ask this. Do you read 12Frank at this point in the omitted words, do you read 13Frank as still quoting Hitler's speech? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. I think at the beginning part of his talk in which he 15says, "We must put an end to the Jews" and he cites the 16Fuhrer and that he goes on, you know, "We must have 17compassion only for the German people", these are citings 18I think in a sense the speech that he got there. Then 19when he gets down to beyond that I believe he is now not 20necessarily paraphrasing what he had heard in Hitler's 21peach on December 12th. 22Q.
[Mr Justice Gray]
He does say, "In Berlin we were told why all this 23trouble", and so on? 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. My feeling here is that that is more than a speech, 25that he has had a separate meeting with Hitler and he must 26have at some point had meetings with people who told him

. P-135

1about the upcoming Wannsee conference, because there is no 2indication that Hitler would have mentioned that. So that 3I think he has talked to -- my interpretation would be 4that he had talked to a number of people, possibly with 5Hitler alone, and clearly with someone who let him know 6that there would be further meetings, because he makes 7reference to this meeting under the SS at which much of 8this will be sorted out. 9MR IRVING: Are you aware of testimony that Hans Frank gave 10at Nuremberg, evidence-in-chief I believe, in which he was 11questioned about his contacts with Hitler, and he 12mentioned having visited Hitler once and talked to Hitler 13about Auschwitz and asked him what was going on there, 14that he described having tried to gain access to Auschwitz 15but that he was turned back on the excuse that there was 16an epidemic? Are you familiar with that passage? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I am not, but Auschwitz is not in the General Government 18and certainly not in Frank's jurisdiction, and I would see 19no reason why he could barge into Auschwitz. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
Was this particular passage put to you in the Canadian 21trial that I referred to earlier? 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have a vague recollection but I do not remember in fact 23that discussion in any detail. I know that we brought up 24aspects of the Frank testimony at Nuremberg. I do not 25remember. 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
And that Frank testified on oath at Nuremberg that when he

. P-136

1put this to Hitler, Hitler said to him, "I do not want to 2hear about this, this nothing to do with me, this is 3entirely Himmler's business"? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not remember us discussing that passage. We may have 5but I just do not remember it right now. 6Q.
[Mr Irving]
If your Lordship is interested I could find the actual 7quotation and read it to you. 8MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, do not do it now, but that is quite a 9revealing exchange. 10MR IRVING: Yes. 11MR JUSTICE GRAY: It seems to me. 12MR IRVING: I will do that overnight. 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, do. 14MR IRVING: We are now at the Wannsee conference. Is there any 15indication at all that Hitler was involved in the Wannsee 16conference or was even apprised of it? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We have no evidence of him being apprised of it. We do 18know that Heydrich cites him as authority that the Fuhrer 19has now ordered something other than the territorial 20solutions that now will be sent to the East. 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you referring to the letters of invitation that 22Heydrich sent out in the middle of November 1941? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, I believe it is in the opening of Heydrich's remarks 24that he cites that he is acting on the authority of 25Hitler. 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is that a reference to the vulmardt which was issued to

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1Heydrich by Goring, do you think, on July 31st 1941? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The fact it includes the Goring authorization with the 3invitation, I think that is indeed what he is partly 4referring to. He is bolstering his credentials because he 5is dealing with people who might not be anxious to take 6orders from him. 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is there a dispute among historians as to the significance 8of the Wannsee conference? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think that most of them view it as an implementation 10conference, at a point at which they are now trying to 11initiate the ministerial bureaucracy and in which Heydrich 12is going to visibly assert his leading position in this. 13I do not think it is viewed by many historians now as a 14conference at which a decision was taken. They did not 15debate should we do A or B and then say we will do B. 16They said, "Hitler has ordered this and now how are going 17to implement it? Are we going to include mixed marriage? 18Are we going to include this?" It is an implementation 19conference. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you saying that it has been overrated? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Not overrated, because it is a crucial part of bringing in 22the ministerial bureaucracy. I have always seen it that 23way, so I do not consider it, I am not backing up from 24something I think that I have claimed more than. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
Am I correct in describing it as being an 26inter-ministerial conference at State Secretary level?

. P-138

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
In other words, the ministers themselves were not brought 3in; it was just at the lower levels? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Because Heydrich cannot sit there with people higher than 5his rank. Cabinet ministers would have been parallel with 6Himmler. If Heydrich is sponsoring it he cannot bring in 7people higher in his rank in a programme he is trying to 8assert his leadership. So he would invite the State 9Secretaries. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
This rather tends to down-play the significance of 11Heydrich was acting on Hitler's orders at this meeting 12then, if he is only able to bring in State Secretaries. 13As you say, he is only relying on his own rank. He is 14only pulling his own rank and he is not pulling Hitler's 15rank on those present? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, at the place he cites Hitler's authority, buried 17against all protocol for him summoning cabinet ministers. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
He cited Hitler's authority just proforma, is that what 19you say? 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not think it is proforma. It is setting out his 21authority and he has the signed Goring letter which, as 22best we can tell, he drafted and took to Goring for 23signature and that he, likewise, invokes Hitler's 24authority at the conference. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
You said earlier at any rate in the record of the 26conference (which is not verbatim) there is no explicit

. P-139

1reference to killing. There is one inference from which 2killing can be drawn, am I correct? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
There are a number of passages in which -- that most 4people would view as transparent references. 5Q.
[Mr Irving]
Can you remember one offhand? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I would suggest two. One is that most of the Jews will 7diminish away under physical labour and the rest ---- 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
The hard core will remain? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
--- will be treated accordingly. The second is Buhle's 10reference that where we should we begin, and he said, "We 11should begin in the General Government because there we do 12not have to worry about Jews capable of work". They do 13not mention in the first place what happens to the 14non-workers. They talk about the workers will diminish, 15the survivors will be handled accordingly, and there is no 16reference to the vast majority, the women and children and 17old people, who obviously are not even going to work. 18Then Buhle's reference, "Well, let us begin this programme 19with the General Government because most of the Jews are 20not even work worthy there any longer", I would interpret 21it as a fairly -- as a reference to the fact that they can 22be killed first of all. 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is there a passage in the protocol that reads: "The 24remnant that finally survives all this" -- do you remember 25this passage -- "because here it is undoubtedly a question 26of the part with the greatest resistance will have to be

. P-140

1treated accordingly"? This is what you were referring to 2right, right? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
"Because this remnant representing a natural selection can 5be regarded as the germ cell of a new Jewish 6reconstruction", what are the next two words, do you know? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
"If released". 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
"If released", that is the way you translated them, is it 9not? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 11Q.
[Mr Irving]
And you are familiar with the fact that people accused you 12of having mistranslated that, people accused you of having 13translated the words "upon release" "as if released"? 14MR JUSTICE GRAY: What is the German? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
"Abfreilasung". 16MR IRVING: "Abfreilasung". It is one of those German words 17which you can translate so oder so, as the Germans say, 18one way or the other. 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
And when you say people, quite specifically, Mr Christie, 20the attorney for Zundel ---- 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
Precisely. 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
--- spent a great deal of time trying to make a great deal 23out that. 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
Trying to embarrass you, I agree. I certainly shall not 25try to embarrass you today with that, Professor. I 26just wanted to draw attention to the fact that we do have

. P-141

1problems with words, do we not, in German? I know that 2there are occasionally from the public ranks behind me 3when I spend time going into these words, like "vie" and 4"als" and so on, but it is a problem, is it not, how to 5translate words with the right flavour? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
There are many areas where we could have disputes. 7I think the context here does not leave a whole lot of 8doubt in this case. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is it not possible, and have you in fact done it, to 10either interview those who were at the Wannsee conference 11or to read the interrogations of them which were conducted 12by the Allies after the war, people Stuckart and 13Kritzinger? Have you read the interrogations when they 14were questioned about their recollections of that and 15other conferences? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, I have not read those systematically. I have seen 17excerpts of them, I believe, but I have not gone through 18the exercise of tracing all of those. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
For once I have to express my astonishment that, as an 20Holocaust historian, knowing that in the national archives 21in Washington they have verbatim transcripts of the 22questionings of these half dozen or so surviving 23attendees, you did not read what they had to say about 24their recollections? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
You are free to express your amazement. 26MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, what did Kritzinger have to say? Can

. P-142

1you put that? 2MR IRVING: As a question? 3MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, otherwise ---- 4MR IRVING: Can you justify why you did not do so? 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, no. He has accepted he did not do so, 6but that perhaps is only material if there is something 7really significant he missed by not having consulted what 8Kritzinger said, whoever Kritzinger may be, I do not know. 9MR IRVING: He was a State Secretary in the Reichschancellory, 10I believe, under Lammers. Is it right -- well, I cannot 11ask him what he has not read, my Lord. 12MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, you can. 13MR IRVING: Would you not expected to find that they would have 14been questioned about as to whether there was actually 15explicit reference to killing operations in the Wannsee 16conference and that this might have clarified the 17uncertainties from the text? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think I have seen excerpt of the Stuckart one and, in 19general, they are denying that this had much significance. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. So all of them denied that there had been any 21discussion explicitly of killing operations? 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, as far as I know all of them did. 23MR JUSTICE GRAY: Does that influence your thinking about what 24Wannsee was about? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. I think these people were shown the protocol and if, 26of course, their participation there made them more

. P-143

1vulnerable legally, and here is one case where I would 2invoke Mr Irving's practice that we look at oral testimony 3very carefully, and ask what motive would they have to say 4less than the full truth, and when I have a written 5document, on the one hand, and a self-exculpatory 6testimony post war, on the other hand, I put more weight 7on the written document. 8MR IRVING: But suppose this self-exculpatory testimony after 9the war contained references, for example, by a man called 10Gottfried Buhle who attended the subsequent conference on 11March 5th 1942, and he says: "It was disgusting the way 12these SS officers treated the Jews like cattle", and 13referred to forwarding them here and shipping them there, 14"and when we protested, Eichmann's deputy said, 'We are 15the police and we do as we want'", would that be taken as 16self-exculpatory? Would you expect this man also to have 17remembered and testified if there had been decisions on 18killings? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I would take that as testimony that, in fact, they talked 20fairly openly about killing at these conferences, and a 21denial of others to the contrary should not be trusted. 22This is a non-self-exculpatory statement with much more 23specificity and would indicate, in fact, that Eichmann's 24indication that there were open in their discussion about 25killing than his euphemism has for their credibility. 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
Well, if I am more specific here and say that these

. P-144

1interrogations referred only to the brutal nature of the 2language used by the participants in the uncouth language, 3but there was still no talk of killing, it was just 4treating these people like cattle, does this not indicate 5that probably there was no talk of killing at these 6meetings, no open talk anyway? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, there is no open talk of that at the second one, at 8the March 6th. That is all that Buhle is referring to. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
But again neither in the interrogations nor in the records 10of the Wannsee conference, as far as you have seen them, 11have you seen any explicit references to killing only 12references by inference? 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Except for Eichmann. 14Q.
[Mr Irving]
Except for? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Eichmann is a participant and he ---- 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
What he said in Israel in 1963? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. Or 1960/61. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
'61. My Lord, do you wish to ask further questions about 19Wannsee? 20MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, thank you very much. 21MR IRVING: You referred to Hermann Goring's authorization to 22Heydrich dated July 31st, 1941. One very brief question 23on that: was it intended or taken by either party as 24being a blank cheque to kill? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I believe it was intended as a kind of authorization for a 26feasibility study, that what it says is, "Please study the

. P-145

1question of"---- 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
Of what? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
--"the fate of the Jews in the rest of Europe". It does 4not say killing, it says a total, you know, examine the 5possibility of a total solution for the Jews in Europe. 6Deal with, the second sentence, I believe, is to deal with 7the agencies whose jurisdiction is affected. The third is 8to bring back a plan for a Final Solution, both 9"gesamtlosung" and "endlosung", and my interpretation is 10this is not an order, this is an authorization for 11Heydrich to look into the possibilities of what will they 12do with the rest of the Jews of Europe? 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. Can it be taken just as an extension of the powers 14conferred on Heydrich in January 1939? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
My feeling is no, that the very fact they needed a new 16authorization means that we are no longer talking about 17immigration but a new kind of solution that is no longer 18immigration is what is envisaged, otherwise he would not 19need a new authorization. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
Can I ask to go to page 44 in your expert report, please? 21This is another criticism, I am afraid, of your 22methodology. 23MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page what? 24MR IRVING: 44 of the Professor's expert report. Two lines 25from the bottom you say: "... unloading the train cars 26some 2,000 Jews were found dead in the train"?

. P-146

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
That is the figure you quote? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
You have made the translation yourself? 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 6Q.
[Mr Irving]
Can I draw your attention to the footnote 113 on the 7following page, 45? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
In which you state, no doubt correctly: "A more legible, 10retyped copy of this document contains the figure 200 11rather than 2,000"? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
Why did you use the larger figure rather than the smaller 14figure? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Because it was the original document. The other one says 16"Abschrift" and I use the original rather than copy if 17I have both of them. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
Why do you, therefore, state that a more legible retyped 19copy contains the figure 200 rather than 2,000? 20MR JUSTICE GRAY: Was the figure illegible in the original? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The original is clearly 2,000. It is just a hard document 22to read because the photostat quality is less. The 23retyped copy is a clear one to read but in neither ---- 24MR RAMPTON: Your Lordship has it. 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
--- is there any doubt about ---- 26MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do I? Well, we can actually look at it for

. P-147

1ourselves. 2MR RAMPTON: Yes. Everybody should look at it. It is page 103 3to -- it is the Westerman report, I think, of 14th 4September 1942 -- 105 of L1. 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: And this is the original, not the Abschrift? 6Whereabouts? 7MR RAMPTON: That I cannot -- your Lordship will need the 8Professor's report. I can barely read the wretched thing. 9MR JUSTICE GRAY: So it is not legible? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, the report itself is very difficult to read in this 11edition and in terms of whether it is, you know, what the 12number is. 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I think I have found it in it. I think 14it says 1,000. It is the third paragraph on page 105. It 15looks to me like 1,000 Juden. 16MR IRVING: How many spaces does it have? Is it enough spaces 17for ---- 18MR JUSTICE GRAY: It has plenty of spaces to be 1,000. 19MR IRVING: Four digits then? 20MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, four digits. 21MR IRVING: In that case I will accept that 2,000 is probably 22correct. 23MR JUSTICE GRAY: You can have a look at it, if you want to, 24Mr Irving. I may have the wrong bit. 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It will come near the end. 26MR RAMPTON: My Lord, I think it is the wrong paragraph. I am

. P-148

1sorry. I think it is the last paragraph up from the 2bottom of the last page and I think it is the third line 3and I can read it very clearly. 5,000 "Juden tot" -- it 4is five words in from the right-hand margin is the word 5"tot" and 2,000. 6MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 7MR IRVING: How did that figure of 2,000 dead on a transport of 8that size compare with the average for journeys like 9this? Was the average, am I right in saying, about 20 to 1025 per cent? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This is an extraordinarily high one, but when one looks at 12the surrounding documents of the Westerman report, one 13realizes what had happened, that they -- in these previous 14reports that they had march people from surrounding towns 15in August, and a very hot August, for three or four days, 16left them in a collection centre for several days -- these 17people had not eaten or drunk for nearly a week -- were 18then crammed into cars in which they had not nearly enough 19room. So instead of the usual 100 to 120, they were 20packed in even further, so that you have in a hot summer 21in suffocating conditions packed totally full of people 22who have not eaten or drunk for a long time, being shipped 23in which the guards say they fired off all of their 24ammunition into the cars. This is not a normal transport 25and, thus, I concluded that the 2,000 number is not, in 26fact, unrealistic, given what we know about the nature of

. P-149

1this transport, that it was not a normal transport. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
Which would have happened to the 2,000 bodies when they 3arrived at Belzec? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
They would have been a logistical problem. You would have 5had -- they do not walk out of the trains, so you have to 6get people to carry them from the ramp to the pits. 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
And there they would have been buried or cremated or 8disposed of? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
At this stage they would have been buried. They were not 10cremating yet at Belzec. 11Q.
[Mr Irving]
And lots of people would have seen this going on, 12presumably? 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The people inside the camp. The train cars were brought 14into the camp in the ramp ---- 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
There would have been lots of eyewitnesses, in other 16words, of 2,000 bodies been buried in Belzec? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, they were burying much more than that, in my opinion 18because ---- 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
I am asking about these 2,000. 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
They would have seen these 2,000 being ---- 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
And that would have remained in the memories of very many 22of these eyewitnesses? 23MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, the railway line runs into the camp, 24does it? There is a spur? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The main line runs through and then I believe they pulled 26off on a ramp which, in effect, is fenced in, a siding, so

. P-150

1this would not have been at the central train station, 2this would have been somewhat off, though the Belzec camp 3lies very close to the train tracks there. 4MR IRVING: The reason I am saying this is, quite clearly, as 5you say, it is a logistical problem, it is a human 6problem. You have 2,000 corpses being carried into a camp 7in which there are living people, there are guards, there 8are eyewitnesses, there are prisoners. They are being 9buried, they are being disposed of. It is an horrific 10problem, it is an atrocity, there is no question of that, 11and there are eyewitnesses to it? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
If one is gassing 5,000 people a day, an extra 2,000 13bodies in the train cars is not going to be a memorable 14experience. They are seeing more corpses than that every 15day, day after day, week after week, month after month. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
If I take you now to page 46, paragraph 5.3.14? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
Here you say that the documentary evidence of the killing 19at Belzec and Treblinka is scant. Have I got it right? 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The scant surviving documentation concerning the purpose 21of Sobibor. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
Do we have documentary evidence about Belzec and 25Treblinka, about the gassing? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, about the kinds of people, this is a section that is

. P-151

1still dealing with people being sent there who are not 2sent there to do work and who do not reappear. This is 3not yet the section in which I say how do we find out what 4the documents do not tell us and that is how they were 5killed. 6Q.
[Mr Irving]
Can I take you now to page 48, paragraph 5.4.1? Here we 7have the talk about the pestilential smell from all the 8rotting bodies caused by the inadequate burial of the 9Jews. "No contemporary document specifically states how 10the Jews sent to these three camp were killed". We have 11the same kind of documentary problem again, do we not? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We are dealing with something -- yes, as I have said, that 13they do not have a document, we do not have a document 14from Operation Reinhardt that specifies their being killed 15in gas chambers. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
So how do we know then? Eyewitnesses? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This is what we then turn to, yes. At the beginning 18I said there are numbers of kinds of evidence. Eyewitness 19is one category among a number. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
You very honestly state in the same paragraph towards the 21end: "As in any body of eyewitness testimonies, there are 22errors and contradictions as well as both exaggerations 23and apologetic obfuscation and minimisation"? 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Correct. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
So, in other words, the whole sorry of these three camps 26which I am not challenging -- I am only challenging the

. P-152

1scale of the operations -- the whole story is rather 2hedged in uncertainty and lack of the kind of documentary 3evidence we have for the killings that went on on the 4Eastern Front. 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It is evidence of a different quality. The convergence of 6testimony I think establishes beyond any reasonable doubt 7what took place in those camps. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
The convergence of testimony, as I am beginning to 9believe, is a phrase that people take refuge in when there 10is no testimony and little evidence? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, I believe it is a very useful concept that we deal 12with a totality of evidence, and that if one were to argue 13that we cannot use eyewitness testimony and had to let out 14every criminal in prison on that ground, we would have a 15fairly chaotic society. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
But you would agree that there is are different qualities 17of eye witness testimony; there is eyewitness testimony 18gained from somebody who saw something this afternoon, 19reports this afternoon what he saw this morning or 20yesterday evening, but eyewitness testimony recalled 30 21years later in a West German court is liable to be 22somewhat more shaky? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It is liable to have less specificity. My feeling is if 24somebody had spent six months or 12 months in a death 25camp, he does not forget the existence of gas chambers. 26MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, can I just go back to something

. P-153

1you said a while ago which was that you were not 2challenging -- I am just picking up your quote. 3MR IRVING: This is quite right, my Lord. I am not challenging 4the nature of these three camps. 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are not challenging that? 6MR IRVING: As killing centres. 7MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, you do not have to put it quite like 8that, but you are challenging the scale of operations? 9MR IRVING: Yes. 10MR JUSTICE GRAY: I understand that completely. But at 11paragraph 5.4.1 what Professor Browning is dealing with is 12the way in which Jews were killed. I just wanted to have 13clear from you, you do accept that gas was used to kill 14Jews at all these three camps, as I recall; is that 15correct? 16MR IRVING: I think it is immaterial what way they were killed 17or the way I accept they were killed at these three camps. 18There is a lot of debate about it. But in order to keep 19this trial far shorter than it could be if we really 20wanted to challenge everything in it or debate everything 21in it ---- 22MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, if that is right, you need not bother 23with paragraph 5.4.1 because that is where Professor 24Browning says that they were basically killed in gas 25chambers at those three camps ---- 26MR IRVING: It goes to the whole problem of ---- no.

. P-154

1MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- and, as I understand it, you are not 2challenging that. 3MR IRVING: --- reliability of eyewitnesses. We have now 4established since that concession or statement by me -- I 5hate to say "concession" because it implies that ---- 6MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do not worry about that, yes. 7MR IRVING: --- we have now established since that once again 8it is the eyewitnesses that we are relying upon for this, 9and I am using this as a way of undermining the 10credibility of eyewitnesses or eyewitness evidence as a 11general source. We are later on coming to quite an 12important eyewitness who is a man called Gerstein who 13I shall spend a few minutes assailing the credibility of. 14MR JUSTICE GRAY: Does Gerstein deal with gassing at Belzec, 15Sobibor or Treblinka? 16MR IRVING: Indeed, yes. He claims to be an eyewitness and he 17introduced -- Your Lordship will remember the pretrial 18hearing on November 4th where we learned that Professor 19Browning had desired to incorporate subsequent material 20relating to one particular man. 21MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. All I am getting at this is -- I am 22sorry to interrupt you because I want to keep the 23interruptions to a minimum -- if you are accepting that 24gas chambers were used to kill Jews at these three camps, 25in a sense, there is not terribly much to be gained by 26challenging the credibility of Mr Gerstein who says that.

. P-155

1Is that unfair? 2MR IRVING: It is a general attack on eyewitness evidence which 3is important for the main plank of my case which is 4Auschwitz where we have established, I think ---- 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: I see. 6MR IRVING: --- from Professor van Pelt that the only evidence 7one can really rely on is the eyewitness evidence. 8MR JUSTICE GRAY: So you are using Gerstein as a sort of 9example of the fallibility? 10MR IRVING: Rather like Rommel, I am coming round from the rear 11and attacking am attacking the eyewitnesses. 12MR JUSTICE GRAY: All right. 13MR IRVING: It is an indirect attack. (To the witness): One 14of the eyewitnesses that you rely on is, of course, 15Eichmann. He saw, he visited, some of these camps, did he 16not? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. We have talked a bit about his reliability. Does he 19ever have a tendency to exaggerate, do you think? 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Much less than others and I think sometimes he probably 21understates, but, in general, his memory of sequence of 22events and things seems to be better than most witnesses. 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
Did he describe once visiting a scene of executions and 24seeing blood spurting from the ground like in geysers? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, and then when we have the -- when you have lots of 26bodies like that, I believe that coming up of blood was

. P-156

1testified to by others as well. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
Did he once testify or write in his papers -- in fact, in 3my collection of papers too -- did he write that he got so 4close to one shooting that bits of babies' brain were 5splattered across his nice leather coat? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He complained that at Minsk that happened and, of 7course ---- 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is that credible in your view? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have written on police battalion 101 where the men came 10routinely with their uniform saturated in blood. When you 11shoot people at point blank range, you get bloody. 12Q.
[Mr Irving]
Eichmann, of course, testified that he was told there was 13a Hitler order, and perhaps we ought to ask your views on 14that. 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He consistently says that he learns from Heydrich, so this 16is second-hand, that he learns from Heydrich that Hitler 17has issued the order for the physical annihilation of the 18Jews of Europe. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is it second-hand or third-hand or fourth-hand? If Hitler 20has Himmler who has told Heydrich or Himmler has told 21Muller who has told Heydrich or Himmler has told Heydrich 22who has told Muller? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We only know that it goes from -- all we know is what he 24says and that is that Hitler -- that Heydrich tells him 25Hitler has ordered. Heydrich does not give details of 26what may or may not have intervened.

. P-157

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
What importance do you attach to that particular piece of 2evidence? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He says that from beginning to end, and I think that he is 4probably accurately relating a meeting with Heydrich in 5which this issue was clarified. 6Q.
[Mr Irving]
The end was, presumably, 1963 when he was hanged, and when 7was the beginning in the 1950s, late 1950s? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Certainly from the ---- 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
The Sassen papers? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I am not sure what he says in the Sassen papers except 11I think it must be included because Aschenal wrote a bunch 12of footnotes saying that the person he was publishing was 13mistaken on this -- a strange thing for the editor to do. 14So I believe that -- sometimes I do not remember exactly 15which one says which, but my recollection is that the 16published Adolf Eichmann which based on some Sassen papers 17does stipulate that he was told there was a Hitler order. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
I secured the publication of those actually. I am the one 19who found a publisher because I thought they needed a 20publication, a publisher. I insisted that they should be 21published in their original form because they did contain 22these very odd passages. But can you see any reason why 23Adolf Eichmann in the 1950s, living in the underground in 24Argentina, should have wanted to state in his writings 25that he remembered a Fuhrer order in that way? Can you 26think of any reason why should he have written that?

. P-158

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think he was absolutely convinced there was an order, 2that he was carrying out state policy. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes, would the existence of a Fuhrer order in his mind 4have let him off the hook? "I was only acting on orders", 5would that have let Eichmann off the hook in his own mind 6if there was a Fuhrer order? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It would have been a defence after being arrested, but if 8he says it before that, I think it is a reflection of his 9feeling that he had been carrying out a very major Hitler 10order. 11Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is it evident from these papers that he wrote or dictated 12to the journalist, Sassen, while in the underground in 13Argentina while hiding that he was aware that there was a 14worldwide hue and cry searching for him? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not know how much he was aware of. It is very 16strange that the man who, obviously, had fled to Argentina 17because he knew he was hunted would talk to a journalist. 18What sort of self-destruction wish he had, I do not know, 19but it was very strange behaviour for someone, but 20certainly not an indication that he would then take the 21opportunity to lie. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
Would you not agree that it is possible that he was either 23consciously or unconsciously creating an alibi for 24himself, rehearsing the alibi he would used when he was 25caught or if he was caught? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, I do not think he would be increasing his chances of

. P-159

1getting caught by trying to establish an alibi when if you 2kept your mouth shut he would not be caught in the first 3place. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is it not evident that Sassen had a commercial interest in 5marketing these papers and that he sold them to a major 6New York magazine? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He did sell them to Life magazine. What his motive was 8earlier, I do not know. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
So, in fact, we do not know whether Eichmann actually made 10that confession or whether it was incorporated by the 11journalist? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, we do have -- the Israelis have the transcripts of 13the tapes in which he made handwritten notations, and 14I would have to look at those to find if there was a huge 15discrepancy. I think the one discrepancy in the Life 16magazine report, as opposed to what he consistently says 17in his other testimony, is that they portray his visit to 18Belzec where he talks about there is a camp in a sense 19under construction, I think the Life magazine account 20talks of this being already in operation. My guess is 21that that is a Sassen invention to make it more spiffy. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
Who was Kurt Gerstein? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Kurt Gerstein was a covert anti-Nazi in the SS who was in 24the hygienic department. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
What makes you suggest that he was a covert anti-Nazi? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He had joined and then been expelled from the Nazi Party

. P-160

1and then, at least in his own account, got back into the 2SS because he had heard of the euthanasia programme and he 3wanted to find out more. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
You say "in his own account", when was his account written 5to which you are referring? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The accounts that he gave that he writes are dated in late 7April and early May 1945. He also had conversations with 8others that have been related to us later, would be his 9statements at a time earlier than 1945. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
Would it be to his advantage after World War II to 11establish or to maintain the position that he had been a 12covert anti-Nazi? 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Certainly, lots of people claimed that they were 14anti-Nazis who were not, and the question then is you have 15to look, is this a bona fide claim or not? Certainly, 16lots of people were claiming that, and that would be one 17question you would have to put to the evidence. If you 18have other people such as Bishop Dalias(?) who said 19Gerstein came to him in 1942 or '43 and corroborates his 20anti-Nazi stance, then you would lend more credibility to 21the 1945 statement as opposed to someone who had been 22killing Jews over the years and then suddenly poses as an 23anti-Nazi in 1945. 24MR JUSTICE GRAY: Was he tried? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Gerstein? He was arrested and sent to a French prison 26where he died, and the French prison ruled it as suicide.

. P-161

1Some have voiced suspicion that he was killed by fellow 2prisoners as a traitor. 3MR IRVING: Kurt Gerstein is used or relied upon as an 4important eyewitness, or was relied upon as an important 5eyewitness, for various camps or killing operations. Is 6that right? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He is relied upon, as far as I know, for Belzec and 8Treblinka. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
For Belzec and Treblinka, because he visited these camps? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This is the visits to the camps, yes, that he says he 11visited these camps and I am sure we will get into why 12I credit that. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
What was his actual position in the SS? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
One of the things he was doing was delivering Zyklon-B to 15places for fumigation. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
He was head of the SS pest control office, can we say, 17their fumigation or hygiene department? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Their fumigation department, I think we can say that, yes. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
I mean in the non-homicidal sense ---- 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
--- a straightforward meaning of the word. So he visited 22these camps. Was he delivering anything to these camps? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
According to his account, he brought out Zyklon-B to 24Lublin to fumigate the clothing that was there and then 25went on to Belzec and Treblinka, and that in his account 26at Belzec, I think it is, he buries the rest of the

. P-162

1Zyklon-B and does not deliver that to the camp. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
You talk about "in his account". How many accounts were 3written by Mr Gerstein, to your knowledge? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think there are a number of drafts and notes, but, in 5general, in terms of the finished product, we have the 6French version and the German version and maybe even two 7French versions, but how many -- I have not seen the 8actual notes. I do not know how many drafts that we might 9count as a version, but ---- 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
There is no question as to the authenticity. He was the 11author of these ---- 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not believe that has been challenged. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you familiar with the work of a French academic called 14Henry Rocques? R-O-C-Q-U-E-S, I think it is. 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have not read his work. I have heard the name. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
You have heard the name. Did he write a dissertation on 17the various reports by Kurt Gerstein in order to obtain a 18PhD? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I believe so -- I have heard that. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
Was he awarded a doctorate on the basis of these, 21initially? 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I believe initially. 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
On the basis of his PhD thesis. Did he keep his 24doctorate? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I believe not. 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
What was the problem?

. P-163

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think somebody said the document did not deserve a PhD 2and it was looked into and they withdrew it. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
So the university decided to knuckle under pressure, am 4I right? 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I believe you could say that the university discovered 6somebody had let through a very sloppy dissertation and 7decided that they had better get their house in order. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
Do these things happen often? Are people often stripped 9of their doctorates? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Not very often. 11Q.
[Mr Irving]
Does it happen very often in France? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not know. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
Does it happen largely to revisionist historians? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I know of this case. I do not know of any other. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
Professor Faurisson, are you familiar with the case? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not believe he has had his dissertation withdrawn. 17Q.
[Mr Irving]
Did he have his Professorship removed from him? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I believe he is suspended from teaching but I do not know 19that he had the position terminated. I do not know. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
To get back to Gerstein, is it right that Henry Rock, in 21writing his dissertation discovered no fewer than seven 22different versions of the Gerstein report? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I cannot answer that. 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
And that he obtained also access in the French police 25files to all the private letters that Gerstein had 26written?

. P-164

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That I do not know. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
Not that either. Is it not surprising that your Holocaust 3historian, you have not read his PhD dissertation which 4relies on these papers? 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, I have not seen the PhD dissertation, and it is not 6in circulation that I know of. 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
Like most PhD dissertations, it can be obtained from the 8university, can it not? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
If it has been withdrawn, I do not know. 10MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I am not going to stop you, but 11this is all slightly Alice in Wonderland, is it not? For 12the reason we went through before, you accept there were 13gas chambers so criticising Gerstein for saying there were 14is slightly limited value, I think. Do not take it too 15slowly. 16MR IRVING: A well deserved reprimand, my Lord. 17MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is not a reprimand. 18MR IRVING: Can I take you to page 50 of your report, please? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
I want you to look at the second version of page 50, which 21contains the bold type on it. Your Lordship said in 22November you would interleave the pages? 23MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I have done that and I have crossed out 24the superseded one. 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
My account does not have bold type. 26MR IRVING: It does not have bold type?

. P-165

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
In the new version you interpolated certain sentences. 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I can get my own version and I believe I may be able to 4use that. 5MR IRVING: My Lord, I shall be another half hour at most. 6MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do not hurry. I really mean that. I am not 7seeking to hurry you, just to guide you to the areas which 8I think are of greater significance. 9MR IRVING: Is it fair to say that, after you wrote your report 10initially, you realized that you had omitted, either 11accidentally or wilfully, certain passages which, if 12included, would have cast grave doubt on the reliability 13of this man as a witness? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
What happened is that I in fact sent a draft, mistakenly 15you were sent what was not my final report, and, when 16I got back, it was clear that things that I had put in 17were not included. One of the things was that I was able 18to look at both the French and the German reports and the 19French has some exaggerations not included in the German, 20and I then amended mine and I emphasised further the 21elements ---- 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
I do urge you, before you continue, to consider your 23replies carefully, because the tenor of each of these 24interpolations is very much material that has been 25previously left out or not included which, if left in, 26would have totally destroyed the veracity of this report

. P-166

1or certainly tended to undermine it. In other words, it 2all tends the same way. It is not random omissions. It 3is all that kind of document, right? That kind of 4omission? 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The ones that were added were the cases that highlighted 6exaggerations in Gerstein, that on reflection I felt 7should go in. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
According to Gerstein, I am reading from the middle of 9paragraph 5.4.1.3, new version, this is the sentence which 10you omitted but have now put in: "According to Gerstein 11Globocnik also claimed with great exaggeration Belzec 12Treblinka and Sobibore respectively 15,000, 25,000 and 1320,000 Jews were killed daily with diesel exhaust gas". 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
Do you consider those figures to be reliable? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. I think they are not reliable at all. 17Q.
[Mr Irving]
Rather lower down that same paragraph, we have a 45 wagon 18transport arriving from Woolf with 6,700 Jews, of whom 191,450 were already dead. That is about the same kind of 20proportion, is it not, 20 per cent? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That is similar to the Versterman report and, given the 22conditions under which the Galetian transports were 23coming, I do not consider that to be an exaggeration or, 24on the face of it, outrageous. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
This was in your original report. What would have 26happened to those 1,450 corpses? Would they have been

. P-167

1dragged into the camp and disposed of? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I can only speculate, but my guess would be that after the 3entire operation was over they would then bring the dead 4bodies from the transports. That would have been the last 5clean up item when they had finished liquidating the 6transport. 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
Now we have, "The Jews were forced to undress who arrived 8on this transport", and then comes a parenthesis that you 9originally left out, "the piles of shoes were allegedly 25 10metres high". Is that from the Gerstein report? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That is from Gerstein report. 12Q.
[Mr Irving]
25 metres is, what, 80 feet? 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, it would be. 14Q.
[Mr Irving]
About as tall as that building out there, probably? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not know, but it clearly is an exaggeration. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
It clearly is an exaggeration, but you left it out because 17of space reasons, or was there some other reason why it 18got left out? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It was not a matter of left out, it is a decision of 20putting something in. I had said in the original working 21draft that there were many exaggerations and I felt we had 22better be specific about what they were. 23Q.
[Mr Irving]
Then over the page, my Lord, page 51 of the new version, 24with bold face on the third line, you say: "Approximately 25750 Jews were driven into each of four gas chambers, 26measuring 5 metres by 5 metres each." Is that a

. P-168

1reasonable kind of estimate of the number of people? Why 2did you leave out the phrase "measuring by 5 by 5 metres 3each or apiece"? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
As I said, it was question of putting it in when I felt 5I had to be more specific about what I meant in terms of 6Gerstein's exaggerations. 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
Would it be perverse to believe that, if that measurement, 8the dimensions had been left in, that would have tended to 9undermine the credibility of that sentence? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, given that later I have 200 Jews per gas chamber and 11in another the 750 figure was already considerably out of 12line with other stuff that I put, I make clear in this 13from beginning to end that there are exaggerations and 14that Gerstein does exaggerate. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
But he does not exaggerate just on an amateur scale, does 16he? He exaggerates on a Munchhausen scale. 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
There are some extraordinary exaggerations, yes. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
Can I draw your attention to the next paragraph, 5.4.1.4? 19This is one you left in, I believe? 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This was there. 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
"The following day Gerstein drove to Treblinka where the 22gassing facilities were larger and he saw, you quote, 23veritable mounds of clothing and underwear 115 to 130 feet 24high". 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, which I would suggest was that I was putting in 26already in the first draft considerable materials that

. P-169

1were demonstrating my conclusion that much of his report 2was exaggerated. I added further material. Certainly in 3the working draft there was no attempt to hide that fact. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
But would you agree ---- 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
You suggest that there was some sort of cover up or 6sinister attempt to sanitize Gerstein, I do not think that 7is borne out by looking at either first and second draft. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
I am not trying to suggest that you tried to cover up or 9sanitize, but merely to make passages you wanted to rely 10on seem more plausible. I put it to you that, if you had 11left these passages in, it would have totally demolished 12the veracity of this witness, and no responsible historian 13would have dreamed of using Gerstein as a source. 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
They are in, and I use him, and others have used him, and 15we use him with caution. 16Q.
[Mr Irving]
They are in now, of course, because you subsequently 17amended your report to include them. 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, "amend" is not the right word. As I have said, it 19was a mistake by Mishcon de Reya to have turned over what 20was not the final draft. 21Q.
[Mr Irving]
In other words, in your first draft? 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Do you write one book in one sitting, or do you revise 23things as you go, and do you reflect about what you are 24writing? I have things in a number of drafts. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
I quote Mr Rampton and say you are not allowed to ask me 26questions. I am the one who asks the questions.

. P-170

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Then let me phrase it this way. I write in many drafts. 2I would expect any careful author would write a number of 3drafts, the second and third drafts would not be 4identical, or one would not write numerous drafts. 5Q.
[Mr Irving]
Out of your own mouth, Professor, you are condemning 6yourself. That implies that in your first draft you chose 7to leave all these passages out, and only later did you 8decide to put them back in again for whatever reason. 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It is not a matter of having decided to leave out, I was 10constructing it. I said in the initial draft there were 11many exaggerations. Looking at it, I said let us spell 12that out more clearly. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
Does it not indicate in fact, if you read these monstrous 14exaggerations by Gerstein, that he was a man with a 15severely disordered mind, which finally crashed when he 16committed suicide in prison? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think he was a man that was utter traumatised and 18unstable. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
Yes. In other words, totally unreliable and undependable 20and it was responsible to base an important piece of 21history just on the eyewitness testimony of this man 22because -- is there any other eyewitness testimony of 23equal colour? 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Two things wrong. To say he is unstable is not identical 25to saying unreliable. To say that it is the only 26testimony is false because we have lots of other

. P-171

1testimony. 2Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you referring to Pfannenstiel? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We certainly are. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
Are you referring to what Gerstein is alleged to have said 5to a Swedish diplomat? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
When did this conversation with a Swedish diplomat take 8place? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
August 21, 22, coming back from Warsaw. 10Q.
[Mr Irving]
In 1942? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 12Q.
[Mr Irving]
What date is the Swedish diplomatic memorandum on that 13conversation? Was it contemporary or was it written years 14later? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The one that is in the file of the Swedish Foreign Office 16was written after the war. 17Q.
[Mr Irving]
Three years later. Was there any opportunity for that 18Swedish Foreign Office gentlemen to have cross-pollinated 19his knowledge with what he had read in the Allied and 20Swedish newspapers about what had been discovered? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I have no idea on that. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
No, but you agree that, if this Swedish diplomat had 23written a contemporary memorandum dated August 1942, that 24would have very strong evidentiary value? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That would have been much stronger. 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
Something written after the war in 1945, for various

. P-172

1reasons, is less dependable? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It is evidence of less strength than one written at the 3time. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
Why did this man Pfannenstiel accompany Gerstein on his 5visits to these extermination camps? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not know why he went. 7Q.
[Mr Irving]
What was his position? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He was a Professor. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
Was he a Professor at the Institute of Hygiene in Berlin? 10Yes, not in Berlin, Mabuch on the Lan. 11Q.
[Mr Irving]
And why did he accompany Gerstein? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not know. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
Was that the kind of position where a Professor would 14accompany an SS officer in connection with controlling 15epidemics? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It could well be that he would be invited along as an 17expert or someone who wanted to learn, or that the SS was 18trying to bring in, I do not know. There are a number of 19possible explanations. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
Pfannenstiel, of course, after the war, am I right, 21testified broadly in accordance with what Gerstein had 22stated? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 24Q.
[Mr Irving]
He confirmed that he had seen these things happening? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
What did Gerstein testify that he had seen happening in

. P-173

1two or three sentences? He had seen gassings? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Gerstein testified that he went to both Belzec and 3Treblinka and saw gassings at each. I am not sure -- yes, 4I think he said he saw them at each. Pfannenstiel said 5that he only went to Belzec, that he did not go to 6Treblinka, it could well be that Gerstein went on and he 7did not. Pfannenstiel only confirms being with Gerstein 8in Belzec and seeing the Belzec gassing. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
Take these two people separately. Gerstein went to these 10two camps, carrying with him a hundred kilograms of Zyklon 11or some fumigating agent and his story is that, after he 12had delivered the goods, which was for fumigation of 13clothing -- and he himself states that am I right? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
That the local SS people then gave him a treat and let him 16watch a gassing on the following day. Is that plausible 17in your view? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, I think they said they did some of the work in 19Lublin and then they took him up, and of course, by his 20account, he had gotten into the SS to find out what he 21could. So he would have taken this opportunity. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is there any reason why they should have shown him 23something that was top secret? 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
To people in Lublin this was not top secret, and he was a 25member of the SS. 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
What about Pfannenstiel? Why should they have shown to

. P-174

1this Professor of Hygiene one of the most secret and 2deadly operations going on, namely the Final Solution and 3operation? Why should they have done that? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not know why they should have done that. 5Q.
[Mr Irving]
Can you think of any reason why Pfannenstiel, testifying 6in a West German court after the war, would have said that 7he had seen these things? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It led to a lot more interrogations. If he had denied it 9entirely, I think nothing would have happened, and, when 10he said this, nothing happened either, because witnessing 11it was not committing a crime. 12Q.
[Mr Irving]
You are absolutely right. Witnessing was not committing a 13crime and Mr Gerstein, was he still alive at that time? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
He was dead. So, by saying that Gerstein had witnessed it 16and was involved bringing Zyklon and so on, that did not 17hurt Gerstein either, did it? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Gerstein was dead. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
There was no skin off Pfannenstiel's nose to accept 20whatever was put to him? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think it led to a series of interrogations and, if it 22had not happened, he would have said it. He had no reason 23to incriminate, not incriminate but to involve himself in 24supporting Gerstein's account if it had not occurred. To 25me, it would have been much more likely that he would, 26even if it happened, have denied it than vice versa.

. P-175

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
Surely, if he had denied it, then he would have been 2subjected to even more intensive interrogations until 3finally he came round. Is that not more likely? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
These are German interrogations in the 1950s and, from my 5looking through a number of court cases, the notion that 6he would have been subjected to ongoing pressures and 7whatever, I see no evidence of that in the Belzec trial or 8other trials of this sort. 9Q.
[Mr Irving]
Gerstein has however been pretty comprehensively 10discredited as an eyewitness, has he not? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Gerstein, as I think most would agree, was a very 12traumatized and, they decided, unstable individual, but 13what he witnessed, in terms of having been in Belzec, that 14he knows the names of several of these people, he gets 15them slightly wrong but close enough, whatever, he could 16have come up with those names in his cell in 1945 when the 17Allies had absolutely no knowledge of the names of the 18personnel in these camps. How could he have known that 19there were Galetian transports in August? This was not 20knowledge in 1945. He knows a number of things that could 21not have been known if he had not been there. In that 22case, in those areas, I think one can say that this is a 23witness that is telling what he saw, even if it is in a 24highly excited and exaggerated mode. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
So his visit is plausible but one is entitled to 26disbelieve large parts of what he claims to have seen?

. P-176

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
If this was the only witness for all of Operation 2Reinhardt, we would say that this is a very contested 3one. What he did say in fact, there is very good 4plausibility in the details of which he tells us about 5some things that he could not have known if he had not 6been there, and in turn it is confirmed by a number of 7other witnesses. 8Q.
[Mr Irving]
Does it not tell us something about the integrity of 9historians who have relied so wholeheartedly on Gerstein 10and have suppressed the details which you omitted from 11your original report. I am not pointing a finger at you, 12Professor, I am just talking about a number of other 13historians. I am not going to mention any names. 14MR JUSTICE GRAY: Why does it matter for our purposes, what 15other historians may have made of Gerstein? I do not 16understand. 17MR IRVING: It does not matter at all. 18MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think it really does if one thinks 19about it. 20MR IRVING: It does not, no. The point which I am finally 21going to develop is that, if an eyewitness like Gerstein 22can be discredited so largely through the good fortune of 23our having access to his French police records and other 24materials, is it not likely that other eyewitnesses will 25turn out also to be made of straw to a greater or lesser 26degree, for one reason or another?

. P-177

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, I do not agree. I think that he is confirmed in his 2essentials, and the question before us here was how did 3the killing at these camps take place? And he is one of a 4number of witnesses that say they take place in gas 5chambers. In so far as he can come up with the names of 6the people that were there, the transports from the 7particular region that were arriving at Belzec at that 8time, I think this is very essential for saying this part 9of his testimony is reliable. I do not consider that 10having been destroyed in any way, and I think there are a 11large number of other witnesses that are also believable 12that tell the same story. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
Just dealing with Gerstein at this moment, I do not have 14to destroy all the eyewitnesses. I just want to tackle 15the principal ones. If he was who he said he was and he 16had the task of delivering these fumigation supplies, the 17Zyklon, to those camps, then he would know the people who 18were operating whatever they were operating, would know 19the names. This does not necessarily presuppose that all 20the rest of his story is true, or any of the rest of his 21story is true. 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We know that transports from the Volf went there at this 23time. This was the place from where they were coming. We 24know that Hockenholt was the man who ran the gas chambers, 25that Oberhauser was Wirt's assistant, that he could have 26come into this information without having visited Belzec.

. P-178

1Q.
[Mr Irving]
How did he know that Hockenholt ran the gas chambers? Is 2this another eyewitness? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This is the other eyewitnesses, but people from whom 4Gerstein could never possibly have heard of and known of 5when he was giving this testimony. 6MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I ask a question at this stage, 7Mr Irving, really because it might suggest to you that 8there may be one or two questions you would want to ask as 9a follow up? It is really this. Given that there is a 10live issue about gassing at Auschwitz, does the evidence 11about what was happening at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka 12have an impact on the issue in relation to Auschwitz? Do 13you follow my question? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
In the sense that it has the impact that, if the Operation 15Reinhardt camps are basically killing the bulk of Polish 16Jewry, then the bit provides the historical context for 17weighing, is Auschwitz a similar camp for killing Jews 18brought from other parts of Europe? So they are 19interrelated if, in that sense, the camps are dividing up 20geographical areas from which they receive people. We 21know, I do not know if he does concede but it seems to be, 22that the people sent to these camps died in one way or 23another, and at least the eyewitness testimony tells us 24how that was done. That would contribute to the 25credibility of those that say Auschwitz was a similar camp 26as part of a similar programme.

. P-179

1MR IRVING: My Lord, may I remind you, of course, that I do not 2challenge that there gassings at Auschwitz on some scale? 3It is the scale that we very much challenge. 4MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think, I do not want to quote him without 5his permission, as it were, but I imagine, Professor 6Browning, it is implicit in the answer he has just given, 7would say that you learn something about the scale of the 8gassing at Auschwitz from what was happening at these 9other death camps. 10MR IRVING: With respect, my Lord, I think not. 11MR JUSTICE GRAY: Am I misrepresenting you? 12MR IRVING: I am just alarmed at the notion of building such a 13major part of World War II history just on the testimony 14of half a dozen eye witnesses as far as Auschwitz is 15concerned. 16MR RAMPTON: I do not know where that comes from. It is the 17second time we have had that today. It is built on a mass 18of evidence, documentary, archeological, eyewitness, 19goodness knows what, all of which, as Professor van Pelt 20puts it, converged to the same conclusion. 21MR IRVING: The transcript will show what position we reached. 22MR JUSTICE GRAY: We will obviously have to deal with the 23totality of the evidence, but it had gone through my mind, 24this thought, and I therefore thought it right to put it 25to Professor Browning, because it seems to me to be an 26argument for the existence of gassing on a substantial

. P-180

1scale at Auschwitz. You have heard the answer that 2Professor Browning has given to me. It is a matter for 3you whether you want to pursue it. I appreciate you do 4not accept it. 5MR IRVING: I can only ask the supplementary question, which is 6does that answer depend entirely on eyewitness evidence, 7or is there any documentary basis whatsoever for what you 8have just told his Lordship? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We have documentary evidence for gassing in Semlin and 10Chelmno and the uses of the gas van. We have only 11eyewitness testimony for the existence of gas chambers in 12the three Operation Reinhardt camps. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
So there is no documentary evidence relating to scale 14then? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Not to scale, to mode of killing. What we do have is 16documentary evidence concerning the emptying of Poland of 17Jews to these three camps, which are teeny little villages 18which do not accommodate one and a half million people. 19Q.
[Mr Irving]
We have been through part of that argument sometime ago 20when I mentioned the English village of Aldershot, to 21which large numbers of English people went during World 22War II. 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
If the population of Aldershot had been a group of people 24already deprived of their rights and property, if they had 25been rounded up with all of the brutality that left bodies 26lying all the way to the train station, and if they had

. P-181

1been sent there and never came back, and if a hundred 2witnesses from Aldershot said they had been gassed, we 3would, I think, say something happened at Aldershot. 4Q.
[Mr Irving]
Absolutely right. We do not have 100 witnesses in these 5cases, do we? We have apparently, in the case of 6Auschwitz, about which Mr Rampton is concerned, tens of 7thousands of survivors, but only five or six have been 8questioned on this matter so far as we know from these 9proceedings before us. Anyway, I have no further 10questions. Thank you very much for coming to England, 11Professor Browning. 12MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you. 13< Re-examined by Mr Rampton QC.14MR RAMPTON: My Lord, if I ran maybe past quarter past 4 15perhaps I would be forgiven? 16MR JUSTICE GRAY: I had thought already that, if needs be, we 17will do that. 18MR RAMPTON: We would like to get the Professor off the stand. 19MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that would suit Mr Irving actually, 20and then he will have a free run tomorrow, preparing 21Evans. 22MR RAMPTON: Yes. I do not have that many questions, 23Professor, but it may take a bit of time because I want 24your help with some documents. Can we start, please, with 25what I call the Browning document file, which is tab 7 of 26L1? I would like you to turn to page 19A. This is a

. P-182

1document which by now we all probably can recite in our 2sleep. There was a lot of cross-examination about it. It 3is the message from Muller to the Einsatzgruppen of 1st 4August 1941, I hope, is it? 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 6MR RAMPTON: 19A in a circle. There are about four numbers on 7the page. You are looking for a handwritten number in a 8circle in the bottom right hand corner of the page. 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, 19A I have. 10MR RAMPTON: First of all, can I ask you whether you know how 11long this document has been accessible to scholars? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think the first reference I saw to it was in Gerald 13Fleming, a book published in 1982. 14Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Is that "Hitler und die Entlosung"? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 16Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Second question. I am coming back to the content of it in 17a moment. You see it has the security mark Geheim on it? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, I see Geheim. 19Q.
[Mr Rampton]
I want you just to have a quick look at some of the other 20documents in this bundle, not for the content but for 21their superscription, if I can call it that. For the 22moment, I have lost my note. Can we turn, please, to page 2338? You will remember the context of these questions. It 24was that Mr Irving was suggesting that Geheim was such a 25low security classification that this document could not 26have a sinister connotation.

. P-183

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 2Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Page 38 ought to be what I call the Rademacher report, 3following his visit to Belgrade. Is it? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Correct. 5Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Can you tell me, just glancing at the first page, you know 6it backwards, what is the substance of this document, the 7first page of it? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He is reporting here on the shooting of the male Jews in 9Serbia. He had been sent down there to deal with what was 10to happen to them and he says there really is not a 11problem concerning the male Jews, they are being shot. 12Q.
[Mr Rampton]
They are being shot. He is an official in the Foreign 13Office? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He is the so-called Jewish expert in the Foreign Office. 15Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Do you see that has the mere marking Geheim at the top of 16it? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 18Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Thank you. Then can we go to what I think is 40A? It is 1925th October 41. I am going to ask you to do a bit of 20stationery work, if you do not mind, Professor. Just put 21this in the file. There is one for the witness and one 22for the judge (Same handed). 23MR JUSTICE GRAY: One for Mr Irving? 24MR RAMPTON: One for Mr Irving, yes. This is another of your 25documents, Professor. I say "your documents", documents 26referred to by you. 25th October 1941, from a Dr Wetzler

. P-184

1to somebody called Lohse, who is the Reichs Kommissar for 2the East land. What is this document about? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This is the one in which he discusses the possibility of 4sending someone to Riga to construct gassing apparatuses. 5Q.
[Mr Rampton]
That is in the fourth line on the first page Vergassungs 6apparate. Then, if you turn over the page, can you just 7tell us what the first sentence of the first complete 8paragraph says? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
He says that, given the situation, there are no objections 10if Jews not capable of work are removed by Brock's "little 11helper". 12Q.
[Mr Rampton]
His Vergassungsapparate? 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 14Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Notice then please on the first page the appellation, the 15security? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The security rank is Geheim. 17Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Yes. Then, finally, three other documents. Page 91 is a 18document dated 26th March, the year I do not know. 42, 19I guess, is it? 20MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am going to be very pedantic and say 21Wetzler document, 40A, or otherwise we will never find it. 22MR RAMPTON: Sorry, my Lord? 23MR JUSTICE GRAY: 40A for Wetzler. 24MR RAMPTON: To Lohse? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This is a carbon, so they would have had on the original 26stationery the 194 and the blank paper behind just recalls

. P-185

1the two they typed in. 2Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Have you got page 91? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I think it is the 26th, 26th March 1942. 4Q.
[Mr Rampton]
This is a letter, I think, from somebody called Rauf. 5What is this about? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Rauf is the head of the sort of, I guess we could call it 7the administration of material matters of the 8Reichssicherheitshauptamt. Included in that is the motor 9pool, and this I would have to read through to see 10exactly. 11Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Something about Sonderwagon. 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. This is about the Sonderwagon that are prepared by 13them. 14Q.
[Mr Rampton]
I see. It is about the supply of Sonderwagon? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 16Q.
[Mr Rampton]
What are Sonderwagon? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This is one of terms they used for gas vans. 18Q.
[Mr Rampton]
I notice again in a box at the top of the first page the 19word Geheim only, please. Then, last but one, page 99A, 20this I hope is a letter or a copy of a letter, I think it 21is a Nuremberg document in fact, from Gantzen Muller to 22Karl Wolff? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 24Q.
[Mr Rampton]
This, I think there is no dispute about this, announces 25the starting of the journeys of 5,000 Jews a day from 26Warsaw to Treblinka and twice a week of 5,000 Jews from an

. P-186

1unpronounceable Polish word. 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Schemeshall. 3Q.
[Mr Rampton]
To Belzec, is that right? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 5Q.
[Mr Rampton]
And again the appellation or classification is, is it not, 6on the front page, Geheim? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It is Geheim. 8Q.
[Mr Rampton]
A mere Geheim for that one. Just by way of contrast, we 9can look at Wolff's reply, which is 99C, 13th August 101942,. This is not a Nuremberg document. This looks like 11a copy of an original, does it not? Have you got 99C? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. We have the initials on this, but it is not clear. 13I am not sure whether this is in the files of the person 14who received it, or the person who sent it I assume this 15is in fact in Wolff's file because that is I think where 16these documents come from. 17Q.
[Mr Rampton]
It may be. The only thing we can see about this is that 18there is no Geheim, still less a Geheimerreichssacher . 19The only thing you can see in the box at the top of the 20page is a Gothic AR. Do you see that? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 22Q.
[Mr Rampton]
What does this series of documents that we have looked at, 23and I can tell you in the file there are lots of other 24fairly sinister documents which have no security 25classification at all, what does that tell you about the 26classification Geheim as used on documents of this kind?

. P-187

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That there are many documents referring to the workings of 2the Final Solution and deportation and killing that do not 3have a high secrecy rating. 4Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Finally -- I know this has been laborious -- what is 5your reaction then to the suggestion that the 6classification, a mere classification of Geheim, on the 7Muller order or message to the Einsatzgruppen? It is 8suggested it is not a document of any importance. 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That would not be a persuasive document. 10Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Now, this will be slightly disorderly, not in any sense a 11criticism of Mr Irving, simply because I track his 12cross-examination in my questions to you. Are you 13familiar, I am talking now about numbers, with something 14called the Korherr report of 23rd March 1943? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 16Q.
[Mr Rampton]
So as to save us all getting it out, it is noted in some 17detail in Mr Irving's book Hitler's War, in the 1977 18edition, at pages 503 to 4. The numbers it apparently 19gave---- 20MR IRVING: My Lord we have not raised Korherr report in the 21examination. 22MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, but there was an issue about numbers. 23MR RAMPTON: It has to do with the cross-examination about 24numbers, scale. 25MR JUSTICE GRAY: If it casts light on that issue, it does not 26matter whether it has been referred to or whether it has

. P-188

1not. 2MR RAMPTON: It has to do with numbers in the East. I can give 3you the numbers. Numbers given for people subjected to 4Sonderbehandlung before it was edited. 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you, Mr Rampton, very quickly remind me 6who Korherr is? 7MR RAMPTON: He was Himmler's statistician. Is that right? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Correct. 9MR JUSTICE GRAY: I had forgotten that. 10MR RAMPTON: He is Dr Rickard Korherr, he is an anorak and he 11crunches numbers for Himmler. Anyhow, the numbers he 12gave, if you remember, I will read them out, are for 13people deported from the eastern provinces subjected to 14Sonderbehandlung 1,274,166; for people in the Warthegau, 15and this is at the 23rd March 1943, 145,301, making a 16grand total of 1,419,467. Now, as at that date, 23rd 17March 1943, do those numbers seem surprising to you? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. If anything, I would have thought they would have 19been slightly higher, because at that point in these 20regions the first sweep through the ghettoes has already 21taken place, so this is a very cautious estimate. 22Q.
[Mr Rampton]
By this date, speaking from your general knowledge of the 23subject and your detailed knowledge, end of March 43, 24roughly speaking, how many people do you think have been 25Sonderbehandelt in the three Reinhardt camps? Roughly. 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Roughly. I would say that would be the lower estimate and

. P-189

1it might be 100 or 200,000 higher. Basically, the 2question is how many Polish Jews do we still know are in 3other places and they are in the work camps in Lublin, 4there is still 50 to 60,000 in the Warsaw ghetto. They 5have not liquidated the remnant ghettoes. So, when they 6made the first sweep, they would take between 70, 80, 90 7per cent and there would be remaining then in the ghettoes 8a smaller group that would be left for work. Then the 9sweep through those ghettoes came in 43. So most of the 10Polish Jewry has been destroyed but there is still a 11segment that has not. 12Q.
[Mr Rampton]
I was going to ask you that as my final question on this 13part of numbers. We saw that Hans Frank estimated between 142 and a half and 3 and a half million Jews or people with 15Jewish connections on 16th September 1941. 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 17Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Is it known how many Jews were left in Poland by the end 18of the war? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
First, I should say those who have looked at real 20statistics and not Frank talking off the top of his head 21would not accept the 2.5 to 3.5 in the 22Generalgouvernment. I should say in Poland the pre 1941, 23that is the German share of Generalgouvernment and to the 24West, I believe German demographers who made reports 25thought it was close to 2 million Polish Jews who were 26there. Galicia has another 500,000. Bialystok I believe

. P-190

1has 200,000 or 300,000, and then of course the unknown 2question is just how many managed to flee. And of those 3who fled were they then killed in White Russia or the 4Ukraine? 5Q.
[Mr Rampton]
I am coming to some fleeing along the line because we had 6that yesterday in report number 81, I think. What shall we 7say then? 3 million? We are talking about Warthegau, 8Generalgouvernment, Bialystok and Galicia in the 9southeast. Total 3 million? Three and a half? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I would say that the prewar population has been estimated 11about 3.3 million for all of Poland but in terms of the 12Generalgouvernment, Galicia, Bialystok, that would leave 13us I think around 3. 14Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Can I repeat the question? You are quite right not to 15adopt Frank's figure and to give us what one might call a 16real figure. Has anybody done work to estimate how many 17Jews were left in this area of Europe after the war? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This is the difficult question because you had a constant 19flow of Jews who survived fleeting from Poland to Germany 20so you always have a moving target. 21Q.
[Mr Rampton]
They flowed westward as well, did they? 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
After the war they fled westward. Most of the immigration 23to Palestine came in fact via Germany. Jews returning 24from hiding who came back to Polish towns felt very 25insecure in the atmosphere, where it was feared they would 26be reclaiming their property and this kind of thing, and

. P-191

1so they moved out of Poland very quickly. 2Q.
[Mr Rampton]
So population lost figures are not necessarily a very 3reliable means to an accurate answer? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We get an approximate figure by subtracting the postwar 5from the prewar to get an approximate number of Polish 6casualties. So we generally say out of 3.3 million 7probably 3 million were murdered and 300,000 survived, but 8those are rough figures. 9Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Yes. I am only asking for what you Americans call ball 10park figures. 11MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are they worth anything, these ball park 12figures? 13A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, I think those are accurate as ball park figures, but 14they could easily be off 100 thousand on either side, 15I would think. 16MR RAMPTON: Yes. 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Where the ball park figures are very uncertain is for the 18Soviet Union. 19Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Now I am afraid I shall need some help from people in 20court. This has to do with three different things that 21arose during your cross-examination, Professor. The first 22thing is to go back, if you will, to 19A in the Browning 23document section of file L1, which is tab 7. Please could 24somebody find the Professor file H1(vii) please? That 25file hunting can stop now because Miss Rogers has done the 26trick with a little file of documents which can go into

. P-192

1this section. I would like to start with the Muller 2message of 1st August 1941, the first sentence of which 3says something like this, does it not, Professor: Running 4reports on the work of the Einsatzgruppen in the East are 5to be placed, or will be placed, before the Fuhrer from 6here"? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 8Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Yes. I am sorry about my translation. That is roughly 9what it says, is it not? Then can you have a look, 10please, at what I think is probably the first of the 11documents in that little clip, which is the situation 12report number 80 dated 11th September 1941? 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: In English? 14MR RAMPTON: This is an English translation. The German is 15there too and I shall need to ask you about that in a 16moment. 17MR IRVING: My Lord, I am unhappy about this introduction of 18documents in this way when I have no chance to re-examine 19on them. 20MR JUSTICE GRAY: You will be offered the opportunity to follow 21up any new points, but this is entirely legitimate 22re-examination. 23MR RAMPTON: Yes. 24MR JUSTICE GRAY: Because it arises in relation to a topic that 25you have cross-examined on. 26MR RAMPTON: Indeed. It arises, if I may say so, in relation

. P-193

1to three topics. It arises in relation to what 2information Hitler was being given, about which the 3Professor was cross-examined. It arises in relation to 4the disappearing Jews that ran across the Urals, which we 5had yesterday, and it arises in relation to the 6translation given by Mr Irving for Hitler's table talk on 725th October 1941, where he translates the word 8"Schrecken" as "rumour", if I have the right German, but 9anyhow he gives "public rumour" as the translation. So 10all three of those points arise from these documents. 11MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 12MR RAMPTON: Can I ask to you look at report number 80 in 13English, September 11th 1941. Have you got that one? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 15Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Good. The second paragraph read as follows. I ask you to 16note the words carefully. "The rumour that the Germans 17shoot to kill all the Jews has advantages. This is 18probably the reason why all the time the EK's encounter 19fewer Jews. Thus it should be noted that everywhere more 20than 70 to 90 per cent of the original local Jews have 21fled. In contrast to the past this concerns not only 22those Jews who once held influential positions". This 23comes I think from Einsatzgruppen C, which had which area 24under its jurisdiction? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Ukraine. 26Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Then, just in passing, please note the other side of the

. P-194

1page, which has a 129 at the bottom, "Notwithstanding that 2those people had, as it were, done a bunk, we still find 3something like 30,000 Jews shot by the 11th September 41941". Do you see that? 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, at the bottom. 6Q.
[Mr Rampton]
I have done the arithmetic for you. 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The Kommandant, he mentions already 23,600, then 8Sonderkommando A had reached a figure of 7,000 so the 9cumulative is 30,000. 10Q.
[Mr Rampton]
31,000, something like that, and notwithstanding that some 11had been able, most had been able, to get away, they still 12found 23,600 which they managed to shoot in three 13days yes. 14Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Now I would like you to look at the German of that 15document, if you will, and the relevant passage, if you 16have this thing, this one is marked Geheim Reichssacher. 17It looks like a 60 on the front but it is not in fact, it 18is an 80, and you can see the date 11th September 1941 on 19the top right hand corner. Have you got that one? 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 21Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Can you turn to page 9, please, and look at the last 22paragraph on the page? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 24Q.
[Mr Rampton]
It reads: (German - document not provided) Please 25translate that for me. 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It turns out to be beneficial. The rumour turns out to be

. P-195

1beneficial, that all the Jews are shot by the Germans. 2Q.
[Mr Rampton]
If you were asked to translate the word "rumour" into 3English, what word would you use? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well gerucht would be the common one. 5Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Finally this, and do you still have Dr Longerich's report 6up there with you? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 8Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Could you turn to page 59? 9MR IRVING: My Lord, I fail to see under what wangle Mr Rampton 10is being allowed to produce this document to put it in? It 11has had no relevance at all of the cross-examination that 12I conducted. 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: We may not have quite got to it yet. It is 14certainly relevant on the questioning so far on whether 15Schrecken is properly translated as "public rumour", which 16was one of the points we went through this morning. 17MR IRVING: A very tiny shoe horn for such a long document, my 18Lord. 19MR JUSTICE GRAY: I can promise you I am not going to plough 20through it unless I am shown other bits of it that are 21worth ploughing through. 22MR IRVING: This document was one of the ones that was put to 23Hitler. 24MR JUSTICE GRAY: This is, as I understand it, one that is 25suggested was generated by the request. 26MR IRVING: I think the witness should be asked if there is any

. P-196

1evidence that this document was one of the ones that was 2put to him. 3MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is a fair point. I think that 4question should be asked, whether there is any evidence 5that this particular situation---- 6MR RAMPTON: I am going to come to that. 7MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think you may have jumped the gun, 8Mr Irving. 9MR RAMPTON: These documents, taken in conjunction, affect 10three questions, Mr Irving's ---- 11MR JUSTICE GRAY: We have through them. I remember them. 12MR RAMPTON: They all arise directly out of cross-examination. 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is right. 14MR RAMPTON: I mentioned, Professor, that you have also got 15there report number 81 about which Mr Irving 16cross-examined you yesterday without producing the 17document. He has not got it there, but I can tell you. 18On page 14 it makes similar remarks about the 72, 90 per 19cent of the people having fled across the Urals? 20A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This was one that was cited yesterday? 21Q.
[Mr Rampton]
It is the day after. It is 12th September. We will hand 22those in later, if we may, my Lord. Can you turn to page 2359 of Longerich, part I? 24MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, before we leave this, I am taking 25it that the reference to 70 to 90 per cent of the original 26refugees having fled is a reference supporting one of

. P-197

1Mr Irving's points, which is that that was what happened 2to quite a lot of the local Jews, namely they went into 3Russia. 4MR RAMPTON: I do not think we dispute that at all. 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. We are agreed about that. 6MR RAMPTON: Oh absolutely. How many Jews do you think there 7were in the Ukraine before the Germans got there? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not know, but the total Soviet population of Jews was 9probably around 5 million, and of course only the question 10of whether one or two million of those were murdered is 11really where you get the difference between five and six 12million victims of the Holocaust. 13Q.
[Mr Rampton]
In your mind, I know this is probably a matter for his 14Lordship than for me, but maybe I can ask this. In your 15mind does it matter whether it is one million or two 16million? 17MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is for me, is it not? 18MR RAMPTON: Well, except in so far as it may impinge on the 19question of system, but I think that has been conceded so 20I need not pursue that. Page 59 of part I of 21Dr Longerich, do you have that? 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 23Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Paragraph 16.4. 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 25Q.
[Mr Rampton]
He writes this: "On 25th October, the year is 41, Hitler 26made the following remark at his table talk after he had

. P-198

1once again made mention of his prophecy of 30th January 21939. 'This criminal race has the 2 million dead from the 3world war on its conscience, now hundreds of thousand. No 4one can say to me we cannot send them into the morass. 5Who then cares about our people? It is good if the terror 6we are exterminating Jewry goes before us", and the word 7for terror is Schrecken in German. 8 You saw in report No. 80 the words the rumour 9that the Germans shoot to kill all the Jews has 10advantages. You notice that that comes about a month and 11a bit before Hitler's table talk on the 25th. You have 12seen the Muller order of 1st August 1941. Is it 13legitimate in your mind as an historian to draw any 14inference about Hitler's reception and knowledge of these 15reports from that information? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We could say that there is a certain resonance. It is not 17a direct one, but it is an inference that the materials 18were getting to him and that the Table Talk might be a 19reflection of having read that. 20Q.
[Mr Rampton]
If we are good, cautious historians, we do not need leap 21to giant conclusions from little inferential sketches like 22that, do we? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We would say that this a possible inference. 24Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Yes. Thank you. The Barbarossa guidelines are on -- if 25you have got Dr Longerich's report, can you turn to the 26second part of it on page 5 where in paragraph 2 he sets

. P-199

1out a part of the guidelines for the conduct of the troops 2in Russia of 19th May. That is about a month before 3Barbarossa is actually launched, is it not? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 5Q.
[Mr Rampton]
He translates it as: "Bolshevism is the mortal enemy of 6the National Socialist German people ... (reading to the 7words) ... Germany's struggle. 82. This struggle demands ruthless, energetic and drastic 9measures against the Bolshevik agitators, guerillas 10saboteurs and Jews as well as the complete removal of all 11active and passive resistance". The German is at footnote 1210 at the bottom of the page and I have two questions 13about this. Professor Longerich translates the German as 14"Those Jews were a separate or disjunctive category from 15all the rest of them". Do you understand? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 17Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Can you look at the German at the bottom of page 10 and 18tell me whether you think he is right write about that? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That is the way I would translate it too. 20MR JUSTICE GRAY: How else could you do it? 21MR RAMPTON: I do not know. 22MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure ---- 23MR RAMPTON: I do not know. 24MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- is this a bit of an Aunt Sally? I mean, 25I am not sure what Mr Irving has made of this. 26MR RAMPTON: I do not know. I have not heard what he says

. P-200

1about this. I know that he does not ---- 2MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, it is re-examination. 3MR RAMPTON: No, this arose in the course of cross-examination, 4this document. 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I know it did, but this point about 6whether Jews are disjunctive as a category. 7MR RAMPTON: Yes. Professor Browning said in his 8cross-examination Jews are a separate category. 9MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 10MR RAMPTON: So I wanted to check with him against the German 11whether he thought that Longerich had translated it 12correctly. 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I see. 14MR RAMPTON: He did not have it in front of him at the time 15when he said it, I think, actually. 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, I was doing that from memory and now I am looking at 17the document. 18MR RAMPTON: The second question is this. Again, this is said 19to be a document directed at the Vermacht, not at the SS 20or anybody else like that or the Gestapo. Who would have 21written it? 22A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
These would have been prepared in the General Staff, 23I think. 24Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Somebody underneath Jodl? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, or even further down but in the Armed Forces, yes. 26Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Now, the numbers -- page 38 of your report, please,

. P-201

1Professor, now -- this is the famous 97,000, I should say 2"notorious". We do not need the German for this. I am 3going to excuse the motor mechanic who is not good at 4German grammar. 5 Page 38: "Since December 1941, for example, 697,000 were processed by three trucks in action, without 7any defects in the vehicles being encountered". 8 How many trucks did they use during this period, 9December to June 1942? 10A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
They had two trucks that were there constantly. Another 11truck came and that is the one that had the accident that 12blew up. So most of time they had two trucks running, 13part of the time a third truck. 14Q.
[Mr Rampton]
I am going to use some arithmetic, then I will ask you 15further questions, if may? I do not know whether 1941 was 16a leap year or not, but there are from 1st December '41 to 171st June 1942, 172 or 173 days. 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 19Q.
[Mr Rampton]
So let us assume it was not a leap year and it is 172. If 20you divide 97,000 by 172, that means they are processing 21564 people a day. If you divide that by three trucks -- 22I know this is rough stuff and maybe the trucks did not 23have equal capacities -- that means roughly 188 people per 24truck per day. If they did, say, four trips a day, that 25would be 47 people per trip and that would mean -- when 26I say "a day" I mean on a 24-hour basis?

. P-201

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 2Q.
[Mr Rampton]
That would mean there would be six hours, roughly 3speaking, five and a bit, between each trip. Does that 4seem feasible? 5A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We know the Saurer truck was much bigger than 40. We do 6not know the size ---- 7Q.
[Mr Rampton]
What do you think its capacity was? 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The Saurer truck was, depending on, you know, women and 9children or adults, would be between 50 and 80. 10Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Right. 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
But, in general, you know, I mean, I think as they show 12that the number per day is not beyond the capacity of the 13two and three trucks. 14Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Right. So four trips a day, that would actually cover the 15numbers involved, would it not? 16A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, we know in Semlin when they made -- they could do two 17trips a day and that would be all the way across Belgrade 18to a burial site that was much further away than the 19distance between the burial grounds and the Chelmno camp 20here. 21Q.
[Mr Rampton]
I mean, how long does it take to drive 20 kilometres in 22one of these trucks? 23A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
We are talking about driving about two or three kilometres 24from the camp. 25Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Two or three? That is a matter of minutes? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. The longer period would be the period to gas. That

. P-203

1is why the motors had to run inside the camp before they 2left or the passengers would not be dead when they 3arrived. 4Q.
[Mr Rampton]
From start to finish of the operation, what is your 5estimate of how long it would have taken? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, would you have to let the desired number of people 7into the basement of the main building where they would be 8undressed, force them up ramp into the truck, close the 9truck doors, run the motor for probably 20 minutes, and 10then drive, given the issue of undressing and the driving, 11on the generous side, we would say an hour, and then you 12must empty the van and clean it out and drive back. 13MR IRVING: My Lord, this is purely speculative. He is not an 14expert on gassing operating ---- 15MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, Mr irving, you must understand if you ask 16almost identical questions in cross-examination, 17Mr Rampton must be entitled to ask the same sort of 18questions in re-examination. 19MR IRVING: Well, I was objecting really to the question that 20was asked about how long would it take to gas them and... 21MR JUSTICE GRAY: But you went into the arithmetic, Mr Irving. 22That opens the issue for Mr Rampton. I am afraid you have 23to take that as being the rule. 24MR IRVING: Well, I asked a slightly vaguer question. He asked 25a specific expert question. 26MR JUSTICE GRAY: Again that is legitimate, I am afraid.

. P-204

1A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I would say this is not speculation in the sense that 2I have read through virtually all the testimony of the 3Chelmno trial and have seen a number of descriptions of 4the operations, so to call what I have said speculation 5would be unfair characterization. 6MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, it is speculation in the sense it is 7reconstruction. 8A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Correct. 9MR RAMPTON: Yes, reconstruction. My real question is this. 10Those sorts of rates, whether it is two or three trucks in 11operation at any one time, whether it is 40 or 50 people 12in the truck at a time, whether there are three or four or 13five trips a day for each truck, does the figure of 97,000 14seem to you to be credible? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It is entirely credible. 16Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Can we please turn back to your L1 tab 7 documents and 17turn to page 74 where I think you were accused -- this is 18Hans Frank on 16th December accused by Mr Irving of 19deliberately suppressing significant parts of the German. 20It is the paragraph that begins "Die Juden"? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 22Q.
[Mr Rampton]
I only want you to look at the sentence, the next 23sentence, which begins: "[German - document not 24provided]". What would you say if you were going to say 25"gas" there? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
"Vergasung".

. P-205

1Q.
[Mr Rampton]
"Vergasung". So he cannot shoot them, he cannot poison 2them, then he says "verden aber", that means "but", does 3it not? 4A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 5Q.
[Mr Rampton]
[German], what does that mean? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Well, "Verden aber" would be in the sense "but 7nonetheless". 8Q.
[Mr Rampton]
"Nonetheless"? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
And "eingriffa" would be, you know, "steps would be 10undertaken". 11Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Yes, [German] "We can do something"? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 13Q.
[Mr Rampton]
And then it says: "Die [German - document not provided]" 14That means what? 15A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That is "one way or another", "in some way". 16Q.
[Mr Rampton]
[German] and then the word "vernichtung erfolch". What 17does that mean? 18A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
"That would lead to a successful", literally in the way 19Germans combine words it means "a destruction success" and 20an English translation usually would be, we would invert 21those and say "a successful destruction". 22Q.
[Mr Rampton]
So "We will find a way to bring about a successful 23destruction"? 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Correct. 25Q.
[Mr Rampton]
"One way or another"? 26A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes, yes.

. P-206

1Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Then I think you will be pleased, Professor, that that is 2that, but I would like, if you can give me the answer -- 3what is this? Finally, I would like a little bit of 4history from you. You were asked about the Wannsee 5conference? 6A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 7Q.
[Mr Rampton]
Was the date in January, 20th January, I think it was, 8'42, its original date? 9A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, it was originally scheduled for December 8 or 9. 10Q.
[Mr Rampton]
And when was it cancelled, do you know, or postponed? 11A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Just right before that, basically at the time of the 12Russian counter offensive around Moscow on 5th and Pearl 13Harbour on the 7th. I forget the exact date. The notices 14of -- when the marginal note that Rademacher makes on the 15invitation, you know, that he hears it has been cancelled, 16I do not remember the exact date, but it comes just 17before. 18Q.
[Mr Rampton]
So does one know the reason why it was cancelled? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
They do not stipulate -- they do not specify, but I think 20a probable inference is that at that point a crisis is 21going on and the people who are invited have too many 22other things to do. 23MR IRVING: It says "because of intervening events", I think, 24does it not? 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
It would suggest that the 5th and 7th were very important 26events that suddenly did not allow -- that Heydrich's

. P-207

1schedule had to be changed. 2MR RAMPTON: Right. Thank you very much, Professor. My Lord, 3those are all the questions I have in re-examination. 4MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, if you think there is anything 5raised by the re-examination would you like to further 6question the Professor about, feel free. 7< FURTHER CROSS-EXAMINED BY MR IRVING. 8MR IRVING: My Lord, going in reverse order, the "We cannot 9shoot them, we cannot poison them", what would the 10objections to shooting and poisoning have been that would 11not also have applied to gassing, if any? 12A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
The shooting of 3 million or 2 million in this case very 13possibly would have, simply it would have been much too 14public. I do not know why Frank would have said they were 15impossible. He is not the one that has been charged with 16trying to figure out how to do it. This is an 17extraordinary thing that is to about to take place, and 18the mind boggles that Frank could not conceive immediately 19of how this would be done strikes me as ---- 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
He was not talking from a script, was he? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
Finally, on this document which has been put to which 23I have not seen mentioned before, which is the Event 24Report No. 80. 25A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Yes. 26Q.
[Mr Irving]
You will notice it has the top State Secret classification

. P-208

1on it? 2A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
This has Geheim, yes. 3Q.
[Mr Irving]
Would I be right in saying that all SS documents are very 4pernickety about the classification of security on them, 5an that the Foreign Office and other bodies were less 6pernickety about the security grade placed on them? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
I do not think I could say that. I notice here that this 8is 48 copies. They may have wanted to stamp it so those 9who were getting, given the number in circulation, that 10they would be very careful with it. That is speculation, 11but I do not know that SS had a tendency to use the Top 12Secret stamp more than the Foreign Office. 13Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is this document typed in the special Fuhrer typewriter? 14A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No, it is not. 15Q.
[Mr Irving]
Have you ever seen any Event Reports typed in this special 16Fuhrer typewriter for submission to Hitler? 17A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Nothing, except the No. 51 we have talked about. 18Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is that called an Event Report? 19A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. 20Q.
[Mr Irving]
Or is it called Meldung Fuhrer? 21A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
That is a report to the Fuhrer. 22Q.
[Mr Irving]
Is there any indication on this document that it was shown 23to the Fuhrer or submitted to the Fuhrer, like vorgelegt? 24A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
No. 25Q.
[Mr Irving]
Thank you. 26MR JUSTICE GRAY: Why would just the one document have been

. P-209

1typed out in the large type for the Fuhrer and marked 2vorgelegt? 3A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Why were these not typed out? 4Q.
[Mr Justice Gray]
Sorry, that was a rather badly phrased question. Does the 5fact that there is only one such document extant indicate 6that there only ever was one document? 7A.
[Professor Christopher Robert Browning]
Given the destruction of documents, particularly, say, in 8Eichmann's office and in the SS, it leaves open the 9question that there was a file of such things, and they 10were destroyed. We do not know. 11MR IRVING: My Lord, I answer that. There is in fact an 12extensive file of such reports to the Fuhrer, but they 13cover everything like the midget torpedo attack on 14Turpids. It is the whole gamut. 15MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sure there are. I was talking only about 16reports from the Einsatzgruppen. 17MR IRVING: That is only one I have seen also. 18MR JUSTICE GRAY: I appreciate it is the only one anyone knows 19about. I was wondering whether that suggested that there 20only ever was one, but the Professor says not. No more 21questions? 22MR IRVING: No further questions. 23MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor Browning, thank you very much. You 24are free to go. 25< (The witness stood down).26MR JUSTICE GRAY: We are going to resume at 10.30 on ----

. P-210

1MR RAMPTON: I think Professor Evans will be here on Thursday. 2MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are you wanting to interpolate some witness 3of your own before him? 4MR IRVING: We have Dr John Fox. 5MR RAMPTON: Whatever you like. 6MR IRVING: I am only going to ask Mr Rampton whether he was 7going to cross-examine me further and, if so, when? 8MR RAMPTON: I will not only say when but I hope what, because 9it is the last things I have to ask about. I was hoping 10to do it on Friday, so as to get it out of the way, but 11I am in other people's hands. 12MR IRVING: Can you say about how long you will be 13cross-examining? 14MR RAMPTON: I do not think it will take all that long. 15MR JUSTICE GRAY: What are the topics? 16MR RAMPTON: The topics are, well, there is the question of 17Mr Irving's knowledge of that Muller signal to the 18Einsatzgruppen. I do not accept his answer that he has 19not seen it before, and there is a reason for that which 20I shall not say what it is now, apart from the fact that 21it appears to have been in the public domain for nearly 20 22years. 23MR IRVING: I have been in the public domain for 62 years. 24MR JUSTICE GRAY: We are not going to have the 25cross-examination now. 26MR RAMPTON: That I think we have dealt with. So that has

. P-211

1gone. There is Zamus report of 16th December 1942 which 2appeared and then disappeared because your Lordship said 3Mr Irving needed more time. 4MR IRVING: Also you should reveal where it came from. 5MR RAMPTON: That is happening and I hope that will be in place 6by Friday. There is Anne Frank that I forgot about out of 7Evans and also van Pelt, and I think I ought to ask a 8couple of questions, it is quite short. Then there is, 9again which I hope I can keep quite short, the question of 10Mr Irving's associates, if I may call them that. 11MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 12MR RAMPTON: That will certainly be completed in a day or 13perhaps less. 14MR JUSTICE GRAY: My slight feeling, and it is up to Mr Irving 15in the end, well, I suppose it is up to me in the end, but 16I wonder whether it is right to interrupt his 17cross-examination ---- 18MR RAMPTON: I agree. 19MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- of really your major witness,. 20MR IRVING: May I suggest that I bring Dr Fox on Thursday? 21MR JUSTICE GRAY: If you are going to do that bring him first 22off. 23MR RAMPTON: Can I say not, because I think I told your 24Lordship Professor Evans is in real difficulty on Friday. 25MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 26MR RAMPTON: Which is why I am proposing -- if your Lordship

. P-212

1wants to leave Friday blank I quite understand the reason 2why, nothing personally, but from Mr Irving' point of 3view, then he has three clear days to gather himself again 4for a renewed assault on Professor Evans on Monday. 5Alternatively Dr. Fox might come on Friday, but it seems a 6bit of a ---- 7MR JUSTICE GRAY: That I would not have so much difficulty 8with, because Fox, frankly, I do not quite know what he is 9going to say, but he has not a major problem for Mr Irving 10in terms of preparation. 11MR RAMPTON: Absolutely certainly not, and none for me because 12I am not going to cross-examine him. 13MR IRVING: You do not what he is going to say yet. 14MR RAMPTON: Of course I do. I have read his witness 15statement. 16MR JUSTICE GRAY: So I have but I have forgotten what is in it. 17MR RAMPTON: Something about free speech I think. 18MR JUSTICE GRAY: Shall we just plan the timetable? On 19Thursday we will have Evans all day. On Friday we will 20Fox for as long as he takes. Then we will resume with 21Evans on Monday. We will have the cross-examination of 22yourself at a later date to be fixed. 23MR RAMPTON: That means only one more day and a tiny bit in 24court this week I think. 25MR JUSTICE GRAY: Which I think at this stage of the case is 26not such a bad thing.

. P-213

1MR IRVING: Preparation of Evans is complicated by the fact 2that I now have to shoe-horn the material which I have 3prepared for Levin and Eatwell into the Evans 4cross-examination. 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: We are giving you a day tomorrow and then you 6are going to have most of Friday. 7MR IRVING: Very well. 8MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are you happy with that because tell me if 9you are not? 10MR IRVING: So Fox on Thursday? 11MR JUSTICE GRAY: Fox on Friday morning. 12MR RAMPTON: If he can manage it. 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: Tell me if it turns out to create any 14problems for you. 15MR RAMPTON: We do not mind, my Lord. If Mr Irving would 16rather have Dr Fox here on Thursday we do not mind. 17MR IRVING: No. 18MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think it is quite a good idea to have him 19on Friday. So we are not sitting tomorrow but we are 20sitting on Thursday. 21(The court adjourned until Thursday, 19th February 2000)2223242526